- Direct [link] to the mp3 file
- Experimental IPFS RSS Feed
- Executive Producers:
- Sir Onymous of Dogpatch and Lower Slobbovia
- Sir Kevin Dills, Earl of North Carolina
- Associate Executive Producers:
- Baron Sir John of South London
- Christina Henry, Dame Christina Pearl of the Clear Blue Skies
- Sir Dino Knight of Sandy Parks
- Sir Richard of Burbank North of the Five
- “Erin” from Party Place Cards on Etsy
- Become a member of the 1426 Club, support the show here
- Knights & Dames
- Max's Mom -> Dame of the Hill People
- John Wynn -> Sir Hold My Beer
- Joseph Leissle -> Sir Dino Knight of Sandy Parks
- End of Show Mixes: Bill Walsh - Toby Langford
- Engineering, Stream Management & Wizardry
- Mark van Dijk - Systems Master
- Ryan Bemrose - Program Director
- Clip Custodian: Neal Jones
- Mandates and Boosters
- The Science has Changed
- NYTimes
- “When facts change: One of the few Covid truisms is that policies should change as reality changes. A world without vaccines calls for more restrictions than a world with vaccines. When cases are surging and hospitals are overwhelmed, as was the case last month, more restrictions make sense. If hospitalizations and deaths keep falling, continued steps toward normalcy will make sense. We have to be able to act differently when the situation changes {…}. It really is a conversation. The answer will not spring forth from Science.” – NYT / The Morning 2/11/22 / by David Leonhardt.
- Patriot mobile - Sprint - TMobile
- Truckers
- When the Trucker Convoy Came for Me - The Atlantic
- I now have the anger I’ve been studying. I now know what it tastes like. And telling myself that the truckers don’t matter, that the convoy will have exactly zero effect on public-health policy in Canada, doesn’t make the anger go away. While I was writing The Next Civil War, I worked hard at suspending judgment, at concentrating on hearing people and trying to understand their motivations, even if they were Nazis or violent criminals. I worked so hard to resist the loathing and the rage. Now they are with me, at my doorstep and in my heart. I want nothing to do with either. Unfortunately, I know more is coming. When you live next to a junkie, you can expect something flaming to land in your backyard eventually. America is a political-anger junkie; the trucker convoy is something flaming that has landed in our backyard. How do we keep ourselves from burning?
- Russia
- Kamala to Germany. She will stop Putin
- Russia not worried about Western sanctions: ambassador
- Moscow "doesn't give a shit" about the risk of Western sanctions if it were to invade Ukraine, Russia's outspoken ambassador to Sweden told a Swedish newspaper.
- "Excuse my language, but we don't give a shit about all their sanctions", Viktor Tatarintsev told the Aftonbladet newspaper in an interview posted on its website late Saturday.
- "We have already had so many sanctions and in that sense they've had a positive effect on our economy and agriculture," said the veteran diplomat, who speaks fluent Swedish and has been posted to the Scandinavian country four times.
- Ukraine freezing at night, MUD during the day
- Crime ridden State of The Netherlands
- Great Reset BBB
- How to Calculate Your Individual ESG Score
- A few different things will determine your personal ESG score, many of which can be discovered via your regular credit report and other public records. Your purchase history and also your sales history will have a dramatic effect on your ESG rating as a person.
- The charities that you support will also increase or even decrease your ESG score. The platform will track your personal impact in the environment around you through various means, which will also be used to calculate your individual ESG score.
- The purpose behind each person being assigned an individual ESG score is to help reward actions that will help move the world towards sustainability. While there are not currently any downsides to having an ESG score, regardless of how high or how low, there will come a time where too low of a score can result in denials for loans or services similar to the way credit scores currently function.
- For now, ESG scores for individuals are used as a tracking tool for companies to monitor behavior. For those who have already started using ESG scores as part of their business model, some people with good scores may notice lucrative offers, easier loan terms, and even targeted packages designed to reward green or sustainable behaviors.
- BLM LGBBTQQIAAPK+ Noodle Boy
- Hats!
- Kennedy killed hats
- My husband mentioned you guys were talking about when/why hats went out of fashion. I had read something about this years ago, and it stuck with me. It said that Kennedy killed the hat at his inauguration, and with his subsequent lack of hat wearing. I remember reading in this former article something about the issue of surveillance, as well. If a photo is taken of a crowd from above, it's nearly impossible to identify anyone in the crowd -- all you see is a sea of hats.So Kennedy removing his hat was meant to influence the public, by which to better identify people in public.I can't find this article anymore, but I admit I didn't look too far.
- Printing vs Taxes
- Taxes offset MMT hyperinflation
- In modern monetary theory taxes are collected to offset inflation and
- prevent hyperinflation. Without taxes, and with a government printing
- trillions of dollars you would get hyper inflation.
- Taxes are the only offset to prevent hyperinflation in modern monetary
- I would just like to note that that is part of modern monetary theory and
- My opinion is that modern monetary theory is just a precursor to
- Franco used it
- I just want to make a note that might be of your interest about the MMT. It
- was many years ago that I was taking with my father (journalist specialized
- in economy who passed away last year) how could it be possible for Franco
- not have income tax, VAT tax and many other taxes that were imposed when
- democracy was stablished in Spain. He answered succinctly: \223he printed money
- and we had ramping inflation rates\224. Basically, the MMT is the monetary
- practice of the Franco regime in Spain. There\222s nothing \223modern\224 in that
- Great Resignation
- Having many millennial children and employees, listening to them I gained some observations.
- The millennials (as you know) entered the job market since 9/11 (which included an economic downturn and poor job opportunities) which was quickly followed by the
- GFC (great financial crisis).
- While the following job markets got stronger for new graduates, the millennials continued to lag. Over the past two years, due to the economic shutdown, they kept
- their jobs but got a growing bank account.
- Money in the bank and a labor shortage - this is the first strong job market most Millennials have experienced (mid to late 30's) and their experience matters in
- They are not arbitrarily resigning, not looking for the perfect job - but they are in a position to find a job that advances them to where they believe they
- should be in their career. When will they get another chance?
- Durham
- Executive 1 ...
- The "Tech Executive" in the Durham filing is Rodney Joffe
- Joffe's direct point of contact with the Hillary campaign was Jake Sullivan
- Cancel Cannon
- Neil Young back on Spotify, because he doesn't own that shit LOL
- STORIES
- How to Calculate Your Individual ESG Score
- Our posts may contain links from our affiliate partners. This supports helps support the site as we donate 10% of all profits to sustainability organizations that align with our values. However, this does not influence our opinions or ratings. Please read our Terms and Conditions for more information.
- In business, ESG issues have been on the docket for quite some time. Not only do stakeholders pay attention to the effect a company has on the environment, third parties and even the government is also keeping track.
- ESG covers a range of issues, including the overall environmental impact a company or its services imparts in addition to diversity, human rights, and other social issues. Governance plays a role as well. Every company will have an ESG rating which is considered their ESG score.
- Investors and other companies use this to help determine partnership, investment, and even takeover decisions.
- That being said, you may be wondering about an individual ESG score. People have credit scores that tell lenders and other parties if they can pay their debts. It is similar to a credit score when it comes to an individual ESG score, but instead of rating creditworthiness, it rates a person's ESG risk.
- This article will cover the basics of an individual ESG score, how yours is calculated, and what it will be used for going forward. We will also teach you how to calculate your individual ESG score so that you can work towards improving your rating.
- Do I Have an ESG Score? You may know all about your credit score, but an individual ESG score is still rather new. Many mainstream financial institutions are creating a new platform that is centered on ESG scores.
- In addition to creating this platform, their lending guidelines are also getting an update that includes new rules that will tie your individual ESG score to your ability to secure lending.
- Being that it's still new, there is not too much that is completely known about how it will be used and what regulations will improve or correct your score. In many cases, people are generally unaware that they even have an ESG score unless they happen to come across it in the process of doing something totally unrelated.
- For example, consumers who have accounts with Merrill Lynch will be able to view their score, whatever that may be. While this may sound like tales out of China, it is a system that is, in fact, being implement in the US and soon many other nations.
- Lenders will use this system to choose who they extend services or credit to. The main reason is that companies, including lenders, are being graded according to the ESG standards themselves.
- Their business and prosperity depend directly on their hiring practices, gender diversity, social and environmental impact, and other ESG factors. As they are required to prove their case, they will also need to show that their clients meet the standards they are being graded.
- See Related: Best Impact Investing Books to Read
- What is the Purpose of an ESG Score for Individuals? A few different things will determine your personal ESG score, many of which can be discovered via your regular credit report and other public records. Your purchase history and also your sales history will have a dramatic effect on your ESG rating as a person.
- The charities that you support will also increase or even decrease your ESG score. The platform will track your personal impact in the environment around you through various means, which will also be used to calculate your individual ESG score.
- The purpose behind each person being assigned an individual ESG score is to help reward actions that will help move the world towards sustainability. While there are not currently any downsides to having an ESG score, regardless of how high or how low, there will come a time where too low of a score can result in denials for loans or services similar to the way credit scores currently function.
- For now, ESG scores for individuals are used as a tracking tool for companies to monitor behavior. For those who have already started using ESG scores as part of their business model, some people with good scores may notice lucrative offers, easier loan terms, and even targeted packages designed to reward green or sustainable behaviors.
- See Related: History of Impact Investing
- What is My ESG Score? Now that you know a little more about the basics and principles behind an individual ESG score, you may be wondering where to find your rating.
- There are a few different places you can check to find your score. If you hold an account at a major financial firm such as Merrill Lynch, your personal ESG score will be listed on your account with your other personal details. You can also check any of the main ESG monitoring companies' websites.
- Usually, you will need to create an account or contact them directly to get information regarding your personal score.
- If you are not an investor or don't have a big financial account, it can be difficult to get your score from traditional places.
- However, you can calculate your score to get a better idea of how companies view you in sustainability.
- See Related: Best Impact Investing Apps
- Quick Tutorial On How to Calculate My Personal ESG Score For companies, any score between 50 and 70 is considered to be average. It is neither good nor bad but rather neutral within that particular industry.
- A score over 70 is a good thing which means the company makes better ESG supportive decisions and has an ESG stable way of doing business.
- For individuals, the scoring is a bit different but follows the same general set of rules. If you are wondering how do I find my personal ESG score, our easy-to-understand tutorial will help.
- See Related: How to Invest in Wind Energy
- What You Need To Determine Your Individual ESG Score Finding and calculating your personal ESG score will mainly depend on your metrics' materiality. In addition to your unique factors, you will also need to identify your personal ESG goals to determine a score.
- You can perform audits of your actions to help spot risks and then implement measures to correct aspects of your increasing score, or rather lowering your personal ESG score.
- ESG ratings are based on the measure of behaviors, investments, habits, and other actions gathered from a range of public sources.
- Your score may be adjusted depending on a range of factors, including the company's policies from which your score is delivered.
- As such, there will be some variation between scores depending on where yours is the source in comparison with your own manual calculations.
- Some things you may need to calculate your personal score are:
- A list of your investments.A general calculation of how many miles you travel via car and public transport.The amount of energy you use each month (electricity, gas, etc.).Your cryptocurrency profile.Your food consumption numbers.Your organic and environmental effort profile.And other metrics.See Related: What is the theory of Change
- Step 1 On How to Calculate ESG Score You will start by amassing the data. Depending on how comprehensive you want your evaluation to be, the more data you will need. Calculate the amount of energy you use personally and as a family. You will also need to calculate the amount of waste you produce personally.
- Look at your purchases and tabulate the percentage of your eco-friendly purchases and those that are not.
- You will also need to look at your investments and separate them into ESG friendly ones and those that are not. Social ethics also play a role in your overall score.
- Consider how your actions, both online and in-person, help support your community and those around you. Also, you will need to calculate how your actions harm those around you.
- The point of these calculations is to understand how much you affect the environment and people around you, both positively and negatively.
- See Related: What are Social Returns on Investment
- Step 2 On How to Calculate ESG Score You can then answer several questions that further relate to your life, habits, and consumption that will help create a complete picture of your interaction with the world around you.
- These survey questions can be downloaded online from any ESG reporting agency, or you can take an online assessment that will help guide you through the appropriate questions.
- See Related: Examples of Collective Model Impact
- Step 3 On How to Calculate ESG Score Once the calculations and questions are completed, the answers will need to be segmented. This will separate your replies and consumption into sections that can then be measured and assigned an ESG value.
- The criteria used to segment the information will vary slightly from one reporting agency to the next. Still, they will cover personal carbon emissions, waste production, energy usage, environmental impact, social impact, ethics insights, and sustainability efforts, among other things.
- See Related: Investing in Carbon Credits: Do They Leave an Impact?
- Step 4 On How to Calculate ESG Score After segmenting each section, a value will then be assigned to each. Some areas have a heavier weight than others. For example, if you invest in green programs and also avoid eating meat, it will have a heavier weight than your use of electricity in your home daily.
- Every ESG rating agency has its own predefined scoring systems that assign weights and measures to each segment. As a result, the final, personal ESG score may vary slightly from agency to agency and agencies to your own calculations.
- Controversies, actual reporting, truth in reporting, and exact tabulations will also play a role in your final score.
- Commercial companies also have more access to public data than you may have on your own, which will further affect the actual score you are awarded.
- See Related: Environmental Justice Jobs
- A Closer Look At The Metrics ESG scores take a lot of information into account when it comes to commercial and industrial entities. On a personal level, just as much information is used to create a picture of who you are and how your personal actions influence the world around you.
- Buying a gun, alcohol, or even clothing will all affect your overall ESG score. Not only will your purchases matter, but who you purchase from and how they do business.
- Your political affiliations also factor into your personal ESG score. Aside from the politics in governance, the party you support and even the person you vote for will make your score go up or down based on that person's actions, policies, and voting habits.
- The type of car you drive, how often, and even how many people are in the car when you drive will also come into play when deciding your score.
- Unlike credit scores with a clear method of tabulation, cause, and effect, ESG scores depend on a wide variety of factors that most people have yet to consider. Depending on where you live, even calculating a personal ESG score can mean giving up your rights to basic privacy.
- ESG vs. Impact Investing: What's The Difference?Best ESG Stocks to Invest in TodayESG Investing Trends ð Invest and Make a Difference ESG investing made easy and free
- Wealth management and SRI investing
- Attractive investment options, fees and automated
- Excellent ESG and SRI options, automated
- Elitemilitair Korps Commandotroepen vast voor drugscriminaliteit en wapenhandel | RTL Nieuws
- Onderzoek naar Taghi 10 februari 2022 22:57 Aangepast: 10 februari 2022 23:33
- archieffoto Beeld (C) ANP Een militair van het Korps Commandotroepen (KCT) is aangehouden op verdenking van voorbereiding van drugsimporten, verduistering van militaire goederen, betrokkenheid bij handel in wapens en verboden wapenbezit.
- Het Openbaar Ministerie Oost-Nederland bevestigt de aanhouding na berichtgeving door De Telegraaf. Het KCT zijn de special forces van de Koninklijke Landmacht. De militair die is aangehouden zou sergeant-majoor zijn.
- Het OM laat weten dat de militair op 1 februari is aangehouden en drie dagen later is voorgeleid aan de rechter-commissaris van de rechtbank in Arnhem. Die heeft tot de voorlopige hechtenis van veertien dagen van de verdachte besloten.
- Lees ook: Oud-militair moet cel in voor trap in kruis agent bij coronademonstratie
- Volgens De Telegraaf is onder collega's bekend dat hij namens het KCT geregeld in Suriname verbleef. Een onderzoek naar de criminele organisatie die volgens justitie wordt geleid door Ridouan Taghi heeft geleid tot de arrestatie van de verdachte, aldus De Telegraaf.
- De Koninklijke Marechaussee doet het onderzoek naar de man. Daarbij is een doorzoeking geweest op twee adressen in Rotterdam en op de kazerne waar de man is gelegerd.
- Altijd weten wat er speelt?Download de gratis RTL Nieuws-app en blijf op de hoogte.
- Opgepakte politieman had inzage in alle lopende infiltraties van politie in georganiseerde misdaad | Binnenland | AD.nl
- Deltacron: the story of the variant that wasn't
- Researchers say that the 'Deltacron' sequences might be the result of lab errors. Credit: T. Narayan/Bloomberg/Getty
- On 7 January, virologist Leondios Kostrikis announced on local television that his research group at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia had identified several SARS-CoV-2 genomes that featured elements of both the Delta and Omicron variants.
- Named by them as 'Deltacron,' Kostrikis and his team uploaded 25 of the sequences to the popular public repository GISAID that evening, and another 27 a few days later. On 8 January, financial news outlet Bloomberg picked up the story, and Deltacron became international news.
- The response from the scientific community was swift. Many specialists declared both on social media and to the press that the 52 sequences did not point to a new variant, and were not the result of recombination '-- the genetic sharing of information '-- between viruses, but instead probably resulted from contamination in the laboratory.
- ''There is no such thing as #Deltacron,'' tweeted Krutika Kuppalli, a member of the World Health Organization's COVID-19 technical team based at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, on 9 January. ''#Omicron and #Delta did NOT form a super variant.''
- Spread of misinformationThe story behind how a small crop of SARS-CoV-2 sequences became the focus of a brief and intense scientific controversy is complicated. And although some researchers applaud the system for quickly catching a possible sequencing error, others warn that the events of last week might offer a cautionary tale on the spread of misinformation during the pandemic.
- Kostrikis says that aspects of his original hypothesis have been misconstrued, and that '-- despite the confusing name that some of the media took to mean that the sequences were those of a Delta''Omicron recombinant virus '-- he never said that the sequences represented a hybrid of the two.
- Nevertheless, 72 hours after the researchers uploaded the sequences, Kostrikis removed them from public view on the database, pending further investigation.
- Cheryl Bennett, an official at the GISAID Foundation's Washington DC office says, given that more than seven million SARS-CoV-2 genomes have been uploaded to the GISAID database since January 2020, some sequencing mistakes should not come as a surprise.
- ''However, rushing to conclusions on data that have just been made available by labs that find themselves under significant time pressure to generate data in a timely manner is not helpful in any outbreak,'' she says.
- An error in the sequence?The 'Deltacron' sequences were generated from virus samples obtained by Kostrikis and his team in December as part of an effort to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants in Cyprus. While examining some of their sequences, the researchers noticed an Omicron-like genetic signature in the gene for the spike protein, which helps the virus to enter cells.
- In an e-mail to Nature, Kostrikis explains that his initial hypothesis was that some Delta virus particles had independently evolved mutations in the spike gene similar to those common in Omicron. But after the wide news coverage, other scientists working on genetic sequencing and COVID-19 pointed out another possibility: a lab error.
- Sequencing any genome depends on primers '-- short bits of manufactured DNA that serve as the starting point for sequencing by binding to the target sequence.
- Delta, however, has a mutation in the spike gene that reduces some primers' ability to bind to it, making it harder to sequence this region of the genome. Omicron doesn't share this mutation, so if any Omicron particles were mixed into the sample owing to contamination, it might make the sequenced spike gene seem to be similar to that in Omicron, says Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport.
- This type of contamination, says Kamil, is ''so, so common''.
- Kostrikis counters that if Deltacron was a product of contamination, sequencing should have turned up Omicron sequences with Delta-like mutations, because Omicron has its own primer-hindering mutation. He adds that the Deltacron lab contamination argument was ''spearheaded by social media without considering our complete data, and without providing any real solid evidence that it is not real''.
- Debunking debacleHowever, other researchers have also pointed out that even if the sequences aren't the result of contamination, the mutations identified by Kostrikis are not exclusive to Omicron and are found in other variants, making 'Deltacron' something of a misnomer.
- In fact, GISAID is littered with sequences that have elements of sequences seen in other variants, says Thomas Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London. Such sequences ''get uploaded all the time'', he says. ''But, generally, people don't have to debunk them because there isn't a load of international press all over them.''
- ''Scientists need to be very careful about what they are saying,'' one virologist, who wanted to remain anonymous to avoid becoming embroiled in the controversy, told Nature. ''When we say something, borders can be closed.''
- Kostrikis now says he is ''in the process of investigating all the crucial views expressed by prominent scientists around the world about my recent announcement''. He says he plans to submit the research for peer review.
- In the interim, Kamil and other researchers fear that such incidents could make researchers more hesitant to share time-sensitive data. ''You have to allow for the scientific community to self-correct,'' he says. ''And, in a pandemic, you have to facilitate the rapid sharing of viral genome data, because that's how we find variants.''
- Rooftop solar could have prevented 2021's Texas big freeze power outage - GearTape
- New research released yesterday found that rooftop solar could have supplied more than enough electricity to meet the shortfall on all but two of the 13 days when power production fell short of forecasted demand a year after the big Texas freeze that knocked out the state's power system and killed at least 246 people.
- According to a paper titled ''Rooftop solar and the 2021 Texas power crisis'' by Environment America Research & Policy Center, Environment Texas Research & Policy Center, and Frontier Group, even on the two days when the gap between supply and demand was the widest (February 15-16, 2021), rooftop solar could have made up approximately 40-60 percent of that gap by significantly reducing the need for electricity from centralised power plants.
- The research compares the role of solar during the freeze to the role it could play in reducing the impact of future extreme weather events on the power grid. The authors used data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to calculate how much power could have been generated by rooftop solar in Texas during the 2021 storm if every suitable rooftop in the state had been fitted with solar panels.
- Texas has had a 123-fold rise in solar power over the last decade, and the state's solar capacity has increased significantly in the last year alone. According to the research, Texas would currently produce almost 70% more solar power than it would a year ago under the same conditions as the February 2021 frost event.
- However, the majority of rooftops that are solar-ready go unused. If those rooftops were used for solar, Texas could add 97,800 megawatts of clean power generating capacity, which would be enough to satisfy nearly one-third of the state's electricity needs in 2020 and more than 15 times the total operating capacity at the time of the 2021 power outage.
- Rooftop solar alone will not fix Texas' energy problems, according to the study. Energy storage, expanded electricity transmission capacity, and improved energy efficiency are all needed to make the state's power infrastructure more resilient.
- After Covid, risks of heart problems remain elevated for up to a year
- As far as Michelle Wilson knew, she'd recovered from Covid-19.
- Wilson, 65, contracted the virus in November 2020. Her illness, she said, was mild, and she was feeling ready to go back to work as a nurse in St. Louis by early December.
- Full coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic
- That's when her heart problems began.
- "I literally woke up one morning, and my heart was racing and beating erratically," Wilson recalled. "I was having intense chest pain."
- Fortunately, Wilson was not having a heart attack. But she did develop long-term heart problems, including high blood pressure, putting her at risk for further cardiovascular issues.
- Despite her age, she had no prior medical history to suggest she was at risk for heart disease '-- other than Covid-19.
- Indeed, it appears the coronavirus can leave patients at risk for heart problems for at least one year following infection, according to one of the largest analyses of post-Covid health effects to date.
- The study, published last week in Nature Medicine, found that the illness increased the possibility of heart rhythm irregularities, as well as potentially deadly blood clots in the legs and lungs, in the year after an acute infection.
- Covid also increased the risk for heart failure by 72 percent, heart attack by 63 percent and stroke by 52 percent '-- even among those, like Wilson, whose original illnesses were mild.
- The study's lead author, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said he and his colleagues expected to see some elevation in heart problems following Covid, but assumed it would be limited largely to people whose health wasn't robust previously.
- The elevated risk remained when researchers accounted for age and race, he said.
- "It was a bit of a moment for us when we realized it was evident in all of these subgroups," Al-Aly said, "including younger adults, older adults, Black people, white people, people with obesity and those without."
- "The risk was everywhere," he said.
- Al-Aly's team examined the rates of new heart problems among 153,760 Covid patients for up to a year following their illness. The participants were patients who'd sought care within the Department of Veterans Affairs, and most were white men.
- Cardiovascular outcomes were compared to two control groups: 5.6 million people without Covid, and another 5.9 million patients whose data was collected before the pandemic began.
- Covid-19 patients in this study were infected before vaccines were available, so it is unclear how the shots might alter the findings.
- But physicians on the front lines of treating Covid and its effects suspect vaccinations do cut heart risks because they reduce Covid infections in general.
- "I've taken care of patients with heart problems" after Covid-19 infection, said Dr. Steve Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic. "The vast majority are unvaccinated."
- Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic
- That Covid-19 appears to increase long-term risks of cardiovascular problems is not surprising to doctors. Other viruses, such as influenza and certain enteroviruses, have long been known to carry the same risks.
- "Anybody who is hospitalized with any kind of pneumonia that they acquire in the community has these risks for six to 12 months," said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association. "The open question for me is, is this something unique about Covid? Or is this the same story we already know?"
- Covid's heart risks may be showing up with more regularity just because the virus spread so quickly.
- "It's very concerning because so many people will be getting Covid in the next however many years, and so many have already gotten it," said Dr. Jennifer Haythe, co-director of the Women's Center for Cardiovascular Health at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York. "This may really increase the burden of cardiovascular disease across the board."
- Al-Aly's research is not the first to suggest long-term heart risks following Covid-19.
- A study of recovered Covid patients in Germany found that 78 percent of patients had heart abnormalities. Swedish research, too, found an increased risk of heart attack and stroke following Covid-19.
- It is not entirely clear how Covid could cause heart problems over the long term, though it is known that the virus can affect blood vessels all over the body and in multiple organs, including the heart.
- For Wilson, the irregular heartbeat has endured.
- She has had to sleep nearly upright for months.
- "It got so bad that when I laid down, I couldn't sleep because my heart was so erratic," she said.
- Her physicians are now monitoring her for any indication of heart failure.
- Regardless of infection, the pandemic itself is also upping the risk of heart health problems.
- "Too many patients are delaying getting back into their routine within the health care system," Lloyd-Jones said. "We've seen marked increases in overall blood pressure levels, weight gain, worsening control of diabetes, and all of those things are contributing to increased risk."
- Anyone whose Covid recovery stalls, or who experiences a sudden onset of new symptoms, such as chest pain, intense muscle weakness or shortness of breath, should call 911 immediately, Lloyd-Jones said.
- Those aren't just red flags, he said. "Those are flashing lights."
- Follow NBC HEALTH on Twitter & Facebook.
- Russia not worried about Western sanctions: ambassador
- Moscow "doesn't give a shit" about the risk of Western sanctions if it were to invade Ukraine, Russia's outspoken ambassador to Sweden told a Swedish newspaper.
- "Excuse my language, but we don't give a shit about all their sanctions", Viktor Tatarintsev told the Aftonbladet newspaper in an interview posted on its website late Saturday.
- "We have already had so many sanctions and in that sense they've had a positive effect on our economy and agriculture," said the veteran diplomat, who speaks fluent Swedish and has been posted to the Scandinavian country four times.
- "We are more self-sufficient and have been able to increase our exports. We have no Italian or Swiss cheeses, but we've learned to make just as good Russian cheeses using Italian and Swiss recipes", he said.
- "New sanctions are nothing positive but not as bad as the West makes it sound", he added.
- Tatarintsev accused the West of not understanding the Russian mentality.
- "The more the West pushes Russia, the stronger the Russian response will be," he said.
- The diplomat's comments come as Western nations fear Moscow is preparing an invasion of Ukraine, having nearly surrounded its western neighbour with more than 100,000 troops.
- Washington has warned that an all-out invasion could begin "any day".
- Tatarintsev insisted Moscow was trying to avoid a war.
- "That is our political leadership's most sincere wish. The last thing people in Russia want is war."
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- T-Mobile Employees Speak Out Against Vaccine Mandate to Fire Hundreds of Unvaccinated Workers By April 2
- Despite a Supreme Court ruling shutting down President Joe Biden's attempt to allow the Federal government to force vaccine mandates on private businesses, some private companies can still choose to mandate vaccinations from workers. One such business is T-Mobile, who will terminate most unvaccinated employees by April 2. Many reached out to relay their anger, concerns, and overall sentiments on the behind-the-scenes actions taken by T-Mobile.
- According to emails and T-Mobile employee documentation leaked to me from a current employee who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, the company has also denied most exemptions. They reportedly also did not inform employees of the two-tiered deadlines until this past January 28, 2022 via email. If they do not receive the first dose of vaccination by February 21, 2022, they will be forced to go into unpaid leave until they can prove to be fully vaccinated by the final April deadline. Once vaccinated they receive what the company calls a ''Magenta Pass,'' and even employees working in mostly ''remote'' positions will need it. The employee also told me that because she was afraid of losing her job, she got the first vaccine but still did not want to be forced to get the second. Most of these employees she said, were considered ''essential'' during the pandemic and are now at risk of losing their livelihoods.
- T-Mobile's employee exemptions show that while most positions are affected in one form or another, managers are to be fully vaccinated even if they do not interact with people frequently, while some entry level retail worker positions are not required full vaccination yet even though they tend to frequently interact with people. One reason for this, according to a male source who works at the company call center, is because the company does not own all store locations so they cannot dictate what resellers require from employees. Others have said it's because they need to retain higher numbers of available employees for these entry level retail positions. The degree of exceptions vary state by state as more lenient states like Florida offer more opportunities for accepted exemptions, but the company has made this a national demand for all employees. Again a reason T-Mobile can get away with this is because the Supreme Court ruling does not prevent private companies from action, but OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) under the U.S Department of Labor, cannot force them to mandate vaccines.
- It's worth noting that T-Mobile is an ''at-will'' work place. At-will means that ''an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except an illegal one, or for no reason without incurring legal liability.'' It also means that an employer can change the terms of employment without notice or consequence, be it in the form of altering wages, terminating benefits, or reducing paid time off. Most countries do not have this structure and can only dismiss a worker with ''cause,'' but in the U.S every state minus Montana is assumed to work at-will, leaving employees vulnerable to arbitrary dismissal, a limited or on-call schedule, and cuts in pay and benefits. This however, can be changed legally via contract and through other exceptions including collective bargaining. For this reason the political leanings of the company play a huge role and as I'm told, T-Mobile as a company leans very liberal. An example of the scant power T-Mobile employees hold showed when the company closed many locations during the pandemic and according to several employees, ''crammed'' those left into stores to assert that they were still providing ''many jobs.'' My source also stated that T-mobile is mass hiring at call centers to offset the people they'll be ''losing''.
- How Those Speaking Against the Policies Are Silenced
- Anonymous Worker 1 was one of the initial people to reach out. She works for the event team doing marketing events so she never has to step into a corporate office but is required a vaccine. She told me that technically people can falsify their information and submit it on Cleared4, a health verification platform, and pass. The platform is used in many sectors of health, education, retail, hospitality and by corporate entities like T-Mobile and other companies, including Netflix. She says, T-Mobile doesn't actually check to see if the process is legitimate other than the appearances for politics. She said that during the pandemic, the company praised them for being essential workers and for keeping them in business by doing extra jobs for the same pay grade. But she said, ''for a company that claims to celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion I feel excluded from being able to make my own decision as an informed adult. There's no informed consent on the vaccines and Comirnaty won't be released until 2025.'' She reiterated that the company is on the side of supporting left-leaning politics. Recently an employee named Joshua had made a comment in a forum about higher ups ignoring requests form HR & insinuated that the company was using mandates to fire people because it would look better, but was really going to fire people anyway. He made a video on YouTube that has since been removed by the platform for ''violating Community guidelines.'' Below is the comment he made. I was told he has since been terminated.
- Unlike the majority of people the mainstream media has shown to be against vaccine mandates, Worker 1's background is different. She's a Mexican-American who has worked at restaurants and retail since the age of 17. The eldest of five, (technically six since she discovered a brother from another mother a few years ago) she's had to help support her family, largely because all of them have children. One of her sisters is in jail for heroin use and prostitution. Another of her sisters has an autistic son that her mother helps takes care of. She's very afraid of retaliation as several people have already been fired and she cannot lose her job. I asked her some questions about how the mandate has affected her work.
- Note: For this interview I wrote some questions out and she answered them via messaging, which is why she linked some information she wanted people to know.
- 1. Why are you refusing to get vaccinated?
- W1: There has been a lot of censorship surrounding many negative/adverse side effects. I can't trust corporations that are bought for and sponsored by other corporations like Big Pharma, for the same political agenda. I have done my research and mRNA is still a new and evolving technology and we have not had decades of research implementing the technology in human vaccines.
- 2. Why do you think it's wrong to be forced to be vaccinated?
- W1: The FDA and CDC approved Comirnaty which won't be released until 2025 or so, which in a way is misleading since we do not know if the final Comirnaty formula/dosage will be the same. It is also misleading since the Pfizer/Biontech (Pfizer claims it's the same formula) and Moderna vaccine are approved under EU (emergency use authorization) but not Comirnaty. We do not have official reportings from any of the companies regarding their processes. Moderna has been very secretive since its inception. Also, T-Mobile promised to not layoff people after the merger but they laid off all of the executive team and they were supposed to "create new jobs" after the merger, but all they did was place existing employees into "new roles" that were created with a different title like "Hometown Expert" or "Customer Loyalty Lead".
- 3. Is this political to you or personal?
- W1: This is both. I will not be forced or coerced to get vaccinated when the IRB process was rushed, meaning most people are not able to have full informed consent for taking the vaccine. There is also no place to gain information from the study we are participating in. We do not know how our medical records are being used for the COVID-19 vaccine reporting, etc. "THE IDEA IS THAT PERHAPS ONE OF THESE COVID-19 VACCINES IN DEVELOPMENT MIGHT BE PREMATURELY RELEASED FOR USE ON POLITICAL GROUNDS."
- 4. What would it mean to lose your job?
- W1: It would mean that everything I've worked for at T-Mobile will be null and void if I have to be employed somewhere else. I have been with T-Mobile corporate since 2018 but started at a Third-Party Retailer (PR) in 2014. I have had to work my way up and it has been a slow process. I have a 7-year-old daughter and am a single mother. Although her father and I coparent he works from home and I make more money than her father does, so this would mean I lose my health insurance, (daughter is on my plan) and benefits as well. Also, I would not receive severance pay and no PTO benefits will be paid out at all.
- 5. Do you feel persecuted?
- W1: Yes, I do. I feel as though I have lost credibility amongst my "leadership team" due to expressing different views, even when I'm being told I did the right thing by my manager for getting my first vaccine. I cried after my vaccine appointment because I compromised my values for a corporation. Not to mention there is a stigma surrounding anyone that does not buy the narrative to "trust the science" when the scientific process has always been meant to be questioned. I also don't feel safe trusting people around me anymore since I get called a "Trumper" for not believing in the vaccine.
- 6. W1: How would you define yourself politically, left, right, independent, and who did you support in the recent presidential elections or primaries?
- Politically, I am nonpartisan or Independent. I was a precinct captain for Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Caucus for the last election and saw corruption from the DNC because Biden was already chosen to be given the delegates by the precinct chair. I used to be a Democrat but changed my stance due to what I experienced first-hand in Iowa. I voted for Howle Hawkins (Green 3rd party candidate) and for other candidates that were on the Minnesota ballot that were not our mainstream picks because I was frustrated at the choices we had on our ballot. I no longer support Ilhan Omar because I feel as though she hasn't done much to curb the poverty, inequality that exists in equity for minorities, and can see how Minneapolis will be gentrified after what happened with George Floyd. I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas and saw many injustices and a corrupt government in Juarez, Mexico that led to the murders of thousands of women (femicide) in my border town. So now I feel like I must fight for our rights in the best way that I know how.
- Internal Emails & Coercive Measures
- Anonymous Worker 2: A worker who often deals with communications in the B2B department, (Business to Business Model) the business and account sales part of the company, shared an internal email from Vice President of B2B Mike Katz. In the email they reiterate the importance of TFB (T-Mobile for Business) employees, those dealing with sales, meeting the vaccination deadline or risking certain separation by April 2. Interestingly the company is ''urgently hiring'' for many of these positions with the vaccine requirement on both the B2B job description & the TFB.
- Worker 2 said that many vaccinated employees were positive with Covid, including a double vaccinated and triple boosted employee, but the company was still urging the B2B workers go back to the office for four days a week. They also said an employee had an immunity disease and refused to get vaccinated initially because their doctor advocated against it, but T-Mobile's ''third party doctor'' overrode it they had to get it. Worker 2 said, ''this is not about health''. Company executives have reportedly been personally calling people, telling them they need to get the vaccine, and then compiling a list of the unvaccinated and calling each of them personally to check on their status. They revealed another VP named Jason Grutzius was recently let go for refusing the vaccine mandate and said they suspect the company made an ''example'' out of Jason for intimidation. Unfortunately Jason likely signed an NDA, so I was told it would be difficult to interview him. Below is the SVP announcing his departure.
- Worker 2 also stated that all the medical exemptions and religious exemptions had been denied thus far, but a few extensions were granted. In fact, multiple people reached out to their Attorney General regarding violations but 95-98% have gotten the vaccine.
- I asked worker 2 some questions about the current situation.
- Why are you refusing to get vaccinated & why?
- W2: The math has not made sense to me. 99.97% mortality rate.
- Why do you think it's wrong to be forced?
- W2: I'm for freedom of choice. Everyone needs to analyze the risk/reward based on their situation. The minute that it didn't stop transmission and the inability to accept natural immunity as an exemption, the conversation ''it's about health'' was over IMO.
- Is this political or personal to you?
- W2: I'm A-political. I believe in free markets and free thinking.
- Do you think the company is forcing their politics on workers?
- W2: I'm not quite sure what's driving. I suspect it's government contracts, especially after the merger for approval.
- What would it mean to lose your job?
- W2: Catastrophic. Would lose everything.
- What's your political ideology?
- W2: Registered Republican a long time ago. Align Libertarian (Free market capitalism)
- How has this affected you personally?
- W2: Stress and anxiety to say the least.
- What's your annual salary and do you have dependents?
- W2: Parter & children. Higher than average salary bracket
- Cancer Patient Enduring Chemo in Fear of Losing Their Job
- Anonymous Worker 3 is in the Midwest, currently enduring a rare form of stage 4 cancer that requires four hours of travel to get to treatments. They've tried applying for a medical exemption to the vaccine but accordingly keep ''getting the run around.'' They described that the cancer treatments are very expensive and if they lost their insurance it would be catastrophic in terms of being unable to pay for them. Life and death. Here is the cost of their treatment (a shot) before insurance, for which they will have to pay $3,000 out of pocket. Worker 3 noted they didn't know how they would even pay that, let alone the $29,846 below.
- I asked them some questions about the vaccine mandate the company is pushing and how it's affected them.
- 1. Why are you refusing to get vaccinated?
- W3: I have a rare and agressive cancer. There is no treatment for it other then sugery which we did. We are doing clinical trails but those are very strict and have not beent tested with the vaccine. We are waiting to get it due to possible side effects causing us to stop treatment which would result in the cancer agressivly growing back and killing me.
- 2. Why do you think it's wrong to be forced?
- W3: It is my body and my choice. I do believe in vaccines but I believe it is a persons' choice on getting them.
- 3. Is this political to you or personal?
- W3: I feel it is both. I think from the company side it is more politcal then anything especially due to the backers of the company.
- 4. Do you think the company is forcing their politics on workers:
- W3: Yes and they have always preached about being your self and diveristy and more. We go through huge semi-annual trainings on this and it goes against everything they do.
- 5. What would it mean to lose your job?
- W3: I would loose my insurance thus I would not be able to do treatment and my cancer will come back. One treatment with nothing but the injection runs 30k.
- 6. Do you feel persecuted?
- W3: I do and discriminated against.
- 7. Where does your political ideology lie?
- W3: I dont go to either side. I look for what is good and helps humans in general. I dont have a politcal side.
- 8. Has this affected you personally, specifically with your health issues?
- W3: Yes it has. It has caused anxiety and depression. I worried about this in September and had a huge panic attack. I was told by work it would never come to that and to not think about that far in the future. I told them I cannot afford to not think about the future. I almost did not have one. I have to think 5 steps ahead to make sure I get those 5 steps.
- 9. What is your salary if I may ask?
- W3: Well I made roughly 47k last year on my own. My life can do a best seller story lol.
- As I was finishing up this report, Worker 3 informed me that they finally got a response about their medical exemption and how to apply but that T-Mobile wants them to sign away their HIPAA rights. In this email the company cites that the employee must sign an ''Authorized to Release Healthcare Information'' form that will allow T-mobile's own medical doctors from ''Broadsphire'' to contact their doctor. In other words the employee has to waive their HIPAA rights to a third party company. If they do not, the company will only assess the application based on the information they have been given by the employee, effectively denying them the exemption for lack of documentation, shown in the email below.
- Below is the form they were sent and where they'll have to sign away their HIPAA rights if they wish to proceed with an exemption. In addition the form contains medical questions that the patient's doctor will be asked about the patient, eliminating the patient from the process altogether. The document notes that the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits employers from requesting genetic information ''except as specifically allowed by this law.''
- A Vaccinated Anti-Mandate Worker & The Political Games The Company Plays
- Anonymous Worker 4 is a woman from Texas who IS vaccinated but is against the mandate. She still wishes to remain very much unknown. She's been working from home for years and doesn't see why she has to be forced to go back into an office nor why those who are not vaccinated but work from home do if they're rarely in contact with anyone else. She began by talking about the segregation between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in her office.
- She said recently the unvaccinated could not go into an office and were not allowed in conference calls. There is no option to work remotely for many positions either. She thought that President of Business Group, Mike Katz's email had no consideration for what employees wanted. She noted how many companies had reversed course, but they did not. The corporate headquarters of the company are based out of Bellevue, Washington and she said, ''this means liberal''. She mentioned the George Floyd protests two years ago and how that sparked some issues in the workplace. According to Worker 4, the company ''forced'' them to take what she called ''white privilege training'' for months. She considers T-Mobile a ''woke''company and has ''never seen anything like it.''
- The expectation that bothers her the most is that they want people to return to the office by force even if they've been working from home since BEFORE the pandemic. In her case, she's been working from home for 20 years. She noted that people have applied for religious or medical exemptions but has not heard of anyone getting approval yet.
- One stark thing is that the form they must upload to Cleared4, that requires a picture of their vaccination card, now asks if people have been boosted. Even more bothersome, the personal information goes to a third party (Cleared4) actor. Some people are vaccinated but do not want to upload their cards because they don't want their private information to go to a third party. Further she says, even if vaccinated, employees must still test themselves and upload a picture of a negative test when they go into an office. She mentions, ''People are confused because they thought this ended with vaccinations.'' Also even if employees have a religious exemption approved, they have to keep renewing it. This is Texas so there is much political tension and she says she ''was discriminated against,'' for her political views. She adds that most are staying quiet because they're fearful and thinks this is strictly a political issue for the company. She cites that AT&T & Verizon had a mandate but rescinded once the government's OSHA case was struck down by the courts. She said people can share their opinion of the company in a forum and many have commented, but it's only about 5-10%. She also said that there's a Chang.org petition to stop the vaccination mandate for all employees.
- Is This Really About Health?
- Multiple unnamed employees shared that they believe the firing of the ''unvaccinated'' is more about having a better excuse to fire people because the company planned on downsizing anyway. Using vaccine mandates as an excuse looks so much better for PR of the company. Many are feeling like things are getting worse and that they have to be careful with anything they say or risk getting fired easily. You can find similar discussions in an online forum called TheLayoff.com.
- In the last few days many have lost their jobs and more layoffs are reportedly on the horizon. On February 7, 2022, the Senior VP of Sales George Fischer confirmed in an internal email that the company was terminating the Business IL Program, or Biz IL, and the Retail Development & Management (RDM). According to one source, they've laid off about 170 RDMs and their managers and those terminated got severance packages until April. Some people may get their job back if they choose to reapply but it would be to a different position. When the Sprint merger occurred, T-Mobile had said they wouldn't fire anyone until three years after, but clearly that is not the case.
- An anonymous whistleblower who did not even share their real name with me, sent data proving that T-Mobile's mandate is at least questionable in terms of acting as a ''public health measure.'' According to the data the whistleblower sent based on raw company data they have access to, 77% of the workforce is vaccinated. T-Mobile has 72,159 employees, which means that around 17,000 employees are unvaccinated and these are the ones the company is willing to part ways from. As mentioned previously, the retail positions do not need to be vaccinated even if they're the ones interacting the most with people and account for 94% of employee covid cases. In fact, last year 62,430 out of 66,412 covid exposures were retail related. So taking into account these numbers the mandate is due to the 5% or 3,982 non-retail employees who got Covid. Of the 66,412 covid exposures, about 73% or 48,754 reported no symptoms. The table below displays these numbers.
- Recently more and more countries and many states are removing Covid restrictions, including mask and vaccine mandates. Simultaneously many private businesses and cities are choosing to do otherwise and continue to demand vaccines from workers, threatening them with termination if they fail to comply.
- New York City is poised to fire 3,000 unvaccinated municipal workers by the end of the week, for failing to get the vaccine. In one of the harshest actions in the U.S, the previous mayor Bill de Blasio, ordered all public and private sector workers in the city to get inoculated with the vaccines back in December. Current mayor Eric Adams continues the policy and has reiterated he will terminate those who do not get vaccinated. This Monday, hundreds of protestors marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, calling on Mayor Eric Adams to lift the mandate for city city workers. In California, Democratic Party State Assembly members introduced a bill this past Friday February 11, that would force businesses to require employees be fully vaccinated or face severe fines and penalties. The bill was introduced current State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, who previously worked on Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign in 2008 and 2012, and three bother democrats.
- While many are excited the restrictions are easing, the fight is far from over as people are now living in fear of thee next variant, the maskless and the ''unvaccinated,'' despite the fact that many mainstream and national medical organizations have revealed many contradictions and mistakes about COVID; revelations independent media has been covering for two years. Among them that cloth masks do not work to stop the spread or the virus and it's questionable that any including N95s do because the virus is airborne. Recently according to a John Hopkins study, lockdowns were found to be entirely ineffective and according to the study and renowned doctors from the Great Barrington Declaration, actually damaging. The other notable key revelation lies in natural immunity, with the CDC admitting that natural immunity is at least five times more effective than immunity gained from vaccination. Even NPR has finally admitted people need to consider it as a factor and it should be looked at ''optimistically.'' In other nations like Germany, natural immunity can supplement a vaccination. Many side effects coming reportedly from vaccines are now discussed more openly, including menstrual disorders for women and myocarditis in young people.
- The Canadian Trucker Convoys, a numerous group of thousands of truckers mainly from the capital city of Ottawa, are protesting against vaccine mandates and have dominated independent media coverage in the last few weeks. The controversial truckers have halted economic production and transportation due to their protests. The convoys have been condemned by the mainstream media, Trudeau's government, and the vast majority of the ''left'' in the U.S and Canada, many of them relying on a superficial viewpoint of the protest from a left-right paradigm, rather than a workers versus government overreach. In fact, the convoys have been tied to ''white supremacy'' and strictly right-wing organizing by these sectors, contradicting the countless videos and interviews coming from independent media on the ground in Ottawa and surrounding regions. Just yesterday Canada declared a state of emergency, allowing them to arrest and imprison Canadian protesters for up to 1 year in jail and be fined up to $100,000.
- The United States appears to be at the beginning of a war that begs to question how much Americans are willing to fight for their own medical freedom and how that will conflict with how much the government wants to exert control for a supposed approach to ''public safety". One thing is certain, every time the U.S government has events in which it must deal with security and safety of the nation, be it 9/11, January 6, or Covid, it manifests via an increase in the surveillance state's power and the American people never get those civil liberties back.
- *Edited to protect anonymity of sources*
- Straw Hat Riot - Wikipedia
- 1922 riot in New York City
- The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 was a riot that occurred in the U.S., in New York City, at the end of the summer as a result of unwritten rules in men's fashions at the time, and a tradition of taunting people who had failed to stop wearing straw hats after autumn began. Originating as a series of minor riots, it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable, September 15. It lasted eight days, leading to many arrests and some injuries.
- Background [ edit ] Newspaper advertisement, 1919
- Straw hats had appeared in the 19th century as summertime wear usually in connection to summer sporting events such as boating (hence the name boater). Soft Panama hats were likewise derived from tropical attire but began to be worn as informal summer attire. Initially it was not considered good form for men to wear these in big cities even at the height of summer (women's hats were different). By the early 20th century, straw boaters were considered acceptable day attire in North American cities at the height of summer even for businessmen, but there was an unwritten rule that one was not supposed to wear a straw hat past September 15 (which was known as "Felt Hat Day").[1]
- This date was arbitrary; earlier it had been September 1, but it eventually shifted to mid-month. It was socially acceptable for stockbrokers to destroy each other's hats, due to the fact that they were ''companions'',[2] but it was not acceptable for total strangers. If any man was seen wearing a straw hat, he was, at minimum, subjecting himself to ridicule, and it was a tradition for youths to knock straw hats off wearers' heads and stomp on them.[3] This tradition became well established, and newspapers of the day would often warn people of the impending approach of the fifteenth, when men would have to switch to felt or silk hats.[4]Hat bashing was only socially acceptable after September 15, but there were multiple occasions leading up to this date where the police had to intervene and stop teenagers.[2]
- Riot [ edit ] The riot itself began on September 13, 1922, two days before the supposed unspoken date, when a group of youths decided to get an early jump on the tradition. This group began in the former "Mulberry Bend" area of Manhattan by removing and stomping hats worn by factory workers who were employed in the area. The more innocuous stomping turned into a brawl when the youths tried to stomp a group of dock workers' hats, and the dock workers fought back.[5] The brawl soon stopped traffic on the Manhattan Bridge and was eventually broken up by police, leading to some arrests.[3]
- Although the initial brawl was broken up by police, the fights continued to escalate the next evening. Gangs of teenagers prowled the streets wielding large sticks, sometimes with a nail driven through the top, looking for pedestrians wearing straw hats and beating those who resisted. One man claimed that his hat was taken and the group who had taken his hat joined a mob of about 1,000 that was snatching hats all along Amsterdam Avenue.[5] Several men were hospitalized from the beatings they received after resisting having their hats taken, and many arrests were made. Police were slow to respond to the riots, although several off-duty police officers found themselves caught up in the brawl when rioters attempted to snatch their hats. Two or three boys were accosted by pedestrians who said that their straw hats had been smashed; the boys were arrested.[5]
- Aftermath [ edit ] Many of those taken to court following arrests related to the hat-snatching frenzy opted to be fined rather than serve time in jail. The longest recorded time one of the teens was sent to jail was three days served by an A. Silverman, who was sentenced by Magistrate Peter A. Hatting during night court.[6]
- In one incident, a group of boys armed with sticks attacked people near 109th Street.[6] Seven of the youths brought to the police station were under 15 and were not arrested; their parents were summoned and the boys were beaten in the East 104th Street police station.[5] After the station dealt with the original riot, all stations were told to keep an eye out for hat-snatching teenagers. E.C. Jones claimed to have seen around 1,000 teenagers in a mob roaming around Amsterdam Avenue.[6] A man, Harry Gerber, was kicked so badly he had to be hospitalized.[6]
- The tradition of hat smashing continued for some time after the riots of 1922, although they marked the worst occurrence of hat smashing. In 1924, a man was murdered for wearing a straw hat. 1925 saw similar arrests made in New York.[3]
- That the activity died out is probably connected with the disappearance of the tradition of the seasonal switch from straw to felt hats. While Panama hats remained in fashion during the 1930s, the straw boater became less fashionable. Straw hats for men continued to be manufactured but they were more similar to hats such as the Panama, trilby or fedora in shape. By the 1950s the classic straw boater was virtually extinct as a garment, except in specialized circumstances such as the uniform of certain English public schools or university and college sportswear.
- See also [ edit ] Zoot Suit RiotHard Hat RiotList of incidents of civil unrest in New York CityList of incidents of civil unrest in the United StatesReferences [ edit ] External links [ edit ] Archived New York Times article
- Bob Saget autopsy report shows multiple fractures, hemorrhaging near brain | WGN-TV
- An autopsy report for Bob Saget has determined he cause of death to be ''blunt head trauma,'' likely the result of a backwards fall. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
- (NEXSTAR) '' An autopsy report for Bob Saget has determined the comedian's cause of death to be ''blunt head trauma'' that resulted in multiple fractures to the skull and hemorrhaging near the brain.
- The report, shared with Nexstar by the office of the Orange County Medical Examiner, further concluded that Saget was COVID-19 positive at the time of his death on Jan. 9, though his respiratory system showed no signs of chronic or acute inflammation.
- ''It is most probable that the decedent suffered an unwitnessed fall backwards and struck the posterior aspect of his head,'' wrote Orange County Chief Medical Examiner Joshua D. Stephany.
- Saget's injuries included, but were not limited to, an abrasion on the back of his scalp, subgaleal hemorrhaging under the back of his scalp, a linear fracture to the base of his skull, comminuted fractures (bone broken into more than two pieces) on ''the roofs of the orbits involving the bilateral and frontal bone,'' and a subdural hematoma and additional hemorrhaging.
- The report indicated that Saget's body was otherwise ''consistent'' with that of a 65-year-old, though one of his arteries showed ''severe atherosclerosis,'' or blockage, narrowing it by up to 95%.
- His death was ruled an accident.
- The autopsy's findings confirm statements that Saget's family had previously provided to NewsNation, saying this week that Saget had ''accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep.''
- Saget, the star of ''Full House'' and host of ''America's Funniest Home Videos,'' had been found dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando on Jan. 9. He had been on a standup tour at the time.
- Friends and fellow comedians reacted to Saget's passing with remembrances on social media. His family, too, thanked his fans for their ''outpouring of love.''
- ''As we continue to mourn together, we ask everyone to remember the love and laughter that Bob brought to this world, and the lessons he taught us all: to be kind to everyone, to let the people you love know you love them, and to face difficult times with hugs and laughter,'' the Saget family said in a statement.
- New Zealand tries old earworm hits to flush out protesters
- WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Some countries might send in a riot squad to disperse trespassing protesters. In New Zealand, authorities turned on the sprinklers and Barry Manilow.
- Initial moves to try and flush out several hundred protesters who have been camped on Parliament's grassy grounds since Tuesday had little effect.
- The protesters, who have been voicing their opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates, responded to the soaking from the sprinklers by digging trenches and installing makeshift drainpipes to divert the water.
- When a downpour hit Saturday, their numbers only grew. Protesters brought in bales of straw, which they scattered on the increasingly sodden grounds at Parliament. Some shouted, others danced and one group performed an Indigenous Maori haka.
- By evening, Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard had come up with a new plan to make the protesters uncomfortable: using a sound system to blast out vaccine messages, decades-old Barry Manilow songs and the 1990s earworm hit 'Å'Macarena'¯½ on a repeat loop.
- Protesters responded by playing their own tunes, including Twister Sister's 'Å'We're Not Gonna Take It.'¯½
- The protest began when a convoy of trucks and cars drove to Parliament from around the nation, inspired by protests in Canada. At first there were more than 1,000 protesters but that number dwindled as the week wore on before growing again on Saturday.
- Police have been taking a more hands-off approach since Thursday, when they arrested 122 people and charged many of them with trespassing or obstruction. Police, who have been wearing protective vests but haven't been using riot gear or carrying guns, had tried to slowly advance on the protesters.
- But that resulted in a number of physical confrontations. A video of two female officers briefly dragging a naked woman by her hair from amid a scuffle went viral.
- In a response to questions from The Associated Press, New Zealand police said they did not remove the woman's clothing as some people had claimed online, and that she had been naked for 'Å'some time'¯½ before her arrest. Police also said the images and videos didn't provide the full context of the protest activity or the situation that police faced.
- Still, the scuffles seemed to prompt a strategic rethink by police, who appeared more content to wait it out as the week wore on. But by Friday, Mallard, the Parliament speaker, had seen enough, and told staff to turn on the sprinklers overnight.
- 'Å'I ordered them on,'¯½ he confirmed to the AP.
- 'Å'No one who is here is here legally, and if they're getting wet from below as well as above, they're likely to be a little bit less comfortable and more likely to go home,'¯½ Mallard said, according to news organization Stuff.
- 'Å'Some people have suggested we add the vaccine in the water, but I don't think it works that way," he joked.
- Mallard told media he was responsible for the sound system loop as well.
- Some of the protesters' vehicles have remained parked in the middle of streets around Parliament, forcing some street closures. The National Library and many cafes and bars in the area have closed their doors while the protest plays out. Police said one protester had a medical event on Friday evening and an ambulance was unable to reach him because of the vehicles blocking the streets, resulting in a delay before he was treated.
- Among the protesters' grievances is the requirement in New Zealand that certain workers get vaccinated against COVID-19, including teachers, doctors, nurses, police and military personnel. Many protesters also oppose mask mandates - such as those in stores and among children over about age 8 in classrooms - and champion the ideal of more 'Å'freedom.'¯½
- Parliament's grounds have often been the site of peaceful protests, although mass campouts are unusual. Typically at least some politicians will come out to listen to the concerns of protesters, but politicians reconvening at Parliament after a summer break were in rare unison by not acknowledging the protesters.
- New Zealand was spared the worst of the pandemic after it closed its borders and implemented strict lockdowns, limiting the spread of the virus. The nation has reported just 53 virus deaths among its population of 5 million.
- But some have grown weary of the restrictions. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week said the country would end its quarantine requirements for incoming travelers in stages as it reopened its borders. With about 77% of New Zealanders vaccinated, Ardern has also promised she won't impose more lockdowns.
- An outbreak of the omicron variant has been growing, with New Zealand reporting a record 454 new community cases Saturday. But none of the 27 people hospitalized from the outbreak needed to be in intensive care beds.
- In wake of omicron, CT sees rise in COVID-linked syndrome affecting children - Hartford Courant
- Connecticut has seen a recent increase in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a condition that can develop several weeks after a COVID-19 infection, hospital officials say.
- ''Last week alone we saw 10 admissions for MIS-C,'' said Alex Hogan, a hospitalist at Connecticut Children's Medical Center who treats patients with the condition. ''Double the most the hospital had ever had.''
- First detected in the spring of 2020, MIS-C is a condition in which vital organs can become inflamed, often causing severe illness and hospitalization. The syndrome can be deadly, though most patients eventually recover.
- Physicians at local hospitals say they had been seeing MIS-C at relatively low levels until about late December, when patients began to show up in greater numbers.
- The explanation for the uptick is this, Hogan said: MIS-C follows COVID-19. After a winter in which tens of thousands of Connecticut children tested positive for COVID-19, it was natural that MIS-C would show up at unprecedented levels.
- ''MIS-C waves happen two-to-six weeks after a huge spike in cases,'' Hogan said. ''It's almost inevitable that if there's a big spike in cases there's going to be a big spike in MIS-C.''
- MIS-C remains extremely rare, with about 110 cases recorded in Connecticut since the start of the pandemic, according to the Department of Public Health.
- But in the wake of the omicron surge, the state has been seeing more cases in recent weeks that any other time since the condition was discovered.
- At Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, doctors saw only 19 cases of MIS-C from July through December, followed by 13 in January alone and four so far in February.
- ''In about six weeks we've seen about as many kids as we did for the previous six months,'' Dr. Tom Murray, the hospital's associate medical director for infection prevention said.
- Though no MIS-C patients at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital have died, Murray said, about 30% have required intensive care.
- ''There aren't many infections that cause post-infectious complications like this that have the potential of putting you in the intensive care unit,'' Murray said. ''So 13 [in January] is a very large number.''
- Dr. Juan Salazar, physician-in-chief at Connecticut Children's, said there was initially some question whether the omicron variant would lead to MIS-C but that the answer was ''unequivocally yes.''
- ''Some of those kids have been pretty sick,'' said Salazar, who is conducting research on MIS-C. ''Some of them have been in the ICU.''
- Connecticut Children's has also not seen any children die of MIS-C, Salazar said.
- The good news, experts say, is that MIS-C almost never occurs in vaccinated children. At Connecticut Children's, Salazar estimates that 98% of cases have come among children either too young to be vaccinated or whose parents have chosen not to vaccinate them.
- ''Some of them are slightly older kids who should have vaccinated months ago,'' Salazar said. ''Vaccines prevent this stuff, so it's still frustrating that so many have not been vaccinated.''
- Not only do vaccines make children less likely to get COVID-19, and therefore less likely to get MIS-C, they also block MIS-C specifically, Salazar said.
- ''The vaccinated kids who may still have breakthrough COVID don't get MIS-C, or very rarely get MIS-C,'' Salazar said.
- Though all children age 5 and older have been eligible for vaccination since November, only 45% of Connecticut residents 5-11 had received at least one dose as of Thursday, by far the lowest of any age group according to state numbers.
- Beyond vaccination, Hogan says, the best way to prevent outbreaks of MIS-C is to prevent transmission of COVID-19 among children.
- ''We should be doing everything we can to stop kids from getting COVID,'' he said. ''Because you don't know which of the thousand kids who get COVID in the school are going to end up with MIS-C and which of those are going to end up in the ICU.''
- Get the latest updates on Coronavirus and other breaking news events happening across Connecticut
- Symptoms of MIS-C can vary case-by-case, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises parents to look for prolonged fever plus some combination of stomach pain, bloodshot eyes, diarrhea, dizziness or lightheadedness, skin rash and vomiting. Hogan said rashes in particular are present in at least 70% of cases he sees.
- Physicians say it can be difficult to predict which kids will develop MIS-C, which often occurs in patients who had relatively mild cases of COVID-19.
- ''If you have a child who's got a persistent fever and abdominal pain or belly pain and a rash, they really should call their pediatrician and be evaluated,'' Murray said.
- Hospital officials say they expect to continue seeing MIS-C cases for several more weeks to come. With Connecticut now past the worst of its omicron-fueled surge, though, Salazar says he's hopeful MIS-C will fade before long.
- ''I think we'll still see patients over the next two weeks and then it will begin to go down'' he said, ''and hopefully this time go away.''
- Alex Putterman can be reached at aputterman@courant.com.
- Vaccine Damage Payment - GOV.UK
- If you're severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against certain diseases, you could get a one-off tax-free payment of £120,000. This is called a Vaccine Damage Payment.
- You can also apply for this payment on behalf of someone who has died after becoming severely disabled because of certain vaccinations. You need to be managing their estate to apply.
- Effect on benefits you receiveA Vaccine Damage Payment can affect benefits and entitlements like:
- Income Support Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance Working Tax Credit Child Tax Credit Universal Credit Pension Credit Housing Benefit Council Tax Reduction Employment and Support AllowanceThe effect the payment will have depends on a number of things. This includes the payment being put into a trust and the payments being made from it.
- If you get a Vaccine Damage Payment, tell the office that deals with your benefit or tax credit claim. You can get contact details from letters they have sent you.
- Wyden and Heinrich: Newly Declassified Documents Reveal Previously Secret CIA Bulk Collection, Problems With CIA Handling of Americans' Information | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon
- February 10, 2022 Senators Call for Critically Needed Transparency About CIA Bulk Collection; Documents Declassified at Wyden and Heinrich's Request Washington, D.C. '' U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for new transparency about bulk surveillance conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency, following the release of documents that revealed a secret bulk collection program and problems with how the agency searches and handles Americans' information.
- Wyden and Heinrich requested the declassification of a report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on a CIA bulk collection program, in a letter sent April 13, 2021. The letter, which was declassified and made public today reveals that ''the CIA has secretly conducted its own bulk program,'' authorized under Executive Order 12333, rather than the laws passed by Congress.
- The letter notes that the program was ''entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight that comes from [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] collection.''
- ''FISA gets all the attention because of the periodic congressional reauthorizations and the release of DOJ, ODNI and FISA Court documents,'' said Senators Wyden and Heinrich in response to the newly declassified documents. ''But what these documents demonstrate is that many of the same concerns that Americans have about their privacy and civil liberties also apply to how the CIA collects and handles information under executive order and outside the FISA law. In particular, these documents reveal serious problems associated with warrantless backdoor searches of Americans, the same issue that has generated bipartisan concern in the FISA context.''
- Wyden and Heinrich called for more transparency from the CIA, including what kind of records were collected and the legal framework for the collection. The PCLOB report noted problems with CIA's handling and searching of Americans' information under the program.
- ''While we appreciate the release of the 'Recommendations from PCLOB Staff' which highlights problems associated with the handling of Americans' information, our letter also stressed that the public deserves to know more about the collection of this information. The DNI and the CIA Director have started this process. We intend to continue to urge them to achieve the transparency the American people deserve.''
- The Wyden-Heinrich letter is here.
- A portion of PCLOB's report on the program was made public here.
- Press Contact Contact: Keith Chu (Wyden)
- Whitney Potter (Heinrich)
- Seattle General Strike - Wikipedia
- 1919 workers' strike in Seattle, Washington
- The Seattle General Strike of 1919 was a five-day general work stoppage by more than 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington from February 6 to 11. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages, after two years of wage controls during World War I. Most other local unions joined the walk-out, including members of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Government officials, the press, and much of the public viewed the strike as a radical attempt to subvert American institutions.
- The strike's demand for higher wages came within months of the end of World War I, the original justification for the wage controls. From 1915 to 1918, Seattle had seen a big increase in union membership, and union leaders were inspired by the Russian revolution of 1917. Some commentators blamed the strike on Bolsheviks and other radicals inspired by "un-American" ideologies, making it the first expression of the anti-left sentiment that characterized the Red Scare of 1919 and 1920.[1]
- Background [ edit ] In these years, more workers in the city were organized in unions than ever before. There was a 400 percent increase in union membership from 1915 to 1918. At the time, workers in the United States, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, were becoming increasingly radicalized, with many in the rank and file supportive of the recent revolution in Russia and working toward a similar revolution in the United States. In the fall of 1919, for instance, Seattle longshoremen refused to load arms destined for the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Russia and attacked those who attempted to load them.[2]
- The arrival of the Russian steamship Shilka in Seattle on December 24, 1917 added to the thought of Bolshevik involvement. The ship had been damaged and thrown off course in a storm and limped its way into the port almost out of fuel, food and fresh water. The U.S. Attorney in Seattle was tipped off by an "informant" that the ship was coming and it was going to "aid the enemy."[3] The enemy at this time would have been the labor parties threatening a strike. Many believed that its arrival signified a Bolshevik connection with the labor unrest in Seattle. A lot of rumors came about because of this ship's arrival. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a front-page article about an I.W.W. ship being held that contained over a hundred thousand dollars to help I.W.W. members get out of jail.[4] This article proved to be false as the search of the vessel by local law enforcement turned up nothing of significance. A first-hand account of a sailor aboard the ship claimed that there was no evidence found on board because the only contentious material was some flyers in a briefcase that were carried off of the ship upon its arrival.[5] Another passenger that arrived with the ship was arrested for taking part in labor talks with one of the unions in the area.[6] Although there was never any concrete evidence connecting the Shilka to the labor parties of Seattle, there was enough to show that the labor parties at the least had the support of Bolshevik Russia. There was a lot of fear of the Bolsheviks because it was known that they had been hoping for a revolution in the Western World in order to support Russia by pooling resources.[7] The ship spent about a month in port before it was allowed to leave and was not seen again in the Seattle area.
- Most unions in Seattle were officially affiliated with the AFL, but the ideas of ordinary workers tended to be more radical than their leaders. A local labor leader from the time discussed the politics of Seattle's workers in June 1919:[8]
- I believe that 95 percent of us agree that the workers should control the industries. Nearly all of us agree on that but very strenuously disagree on the method. Some of us think we can get control through the Cooperative movement, some of us think through political action, and others think through industrial action.
- Another journalist described the spread of propaganda relating to the Russian Revolution:[8]
- For some time these pamphlets were seen by hundreds on Seattle's streetcars and ferries, read by men of the shipyards on their way to work. Seattle's businessmen commented on the phenomenon sourly; it was plain to everyone that these workers were conscientiously and energetically studying how to organize their coming to power. Already, workers in Seattle talked about "workers' power" as a practical policy for the not far distant future.
- Strike [ edit ] Seattle shipyard workers leave the shipyard after going on strike, 1919.
- A few weeks after the November 1918 armistice ended World War I, unions in Seattle's shipbuilding industry demanded a pay increase for unskilled workers. They formed the Seattle Metal Trades Council, made up of delegates from twenty-one different craft unions; there were seventeen at the time of the first strike vote. At the time of the General Strike, these separate unions no longer made separate agreements with the yard-owners; a single blanket-agreement was made at intervals by the Metal Trades Council for all the crafts comprising it. In August 1917, the workers had succeeded in establishing a uniform wage scale for one third of the metal tradesmen working in the city. At the time of the general strike, James Taylor was president of the Council.
- In an attempt to divide the ranks of the union, the yard owners responded by offering a pay increase only to skilled workers. The union rejected that offer and Seattle's 35,000 shipyard workers went on strike on January 21, 1919.[11]
- Controversy erupted when Charles Piez, head of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC), an enterprise created by the federal government as a wartime measure and the largest employer in the industry, sent a telegram to the yard owners threatening to withdraw their contracts if any increase in wages were granted. The message intended for the Metal Trades Association, the owners, was accidentally delivered to the Metal Trades Council, the union. The shipyard workers responded with anger directed at both their employers and the federal government which, through the EFC, seemed to be siding with corporate interests.[11]
- The workers immediately appealed to the Seattle Central Labor Council for a general strike of all workers in Seattle. Members of various unions were polled, with almost unanimous support in favor''even among traditionally conservative unions. As many as 110 locals officially supported the call for a general strike to begin on February 6, 1919, at 10:00 am.[12] Among the strikers were war veterans who wore their uniforms as they went on strike.[13]:'86''87'
- Life during the strike [ edit ] The strike committee set up soup kitchens and distributed as many as 30,000 meals each day. In the photo, a woman serves a plate of food to a striking worker.
- [12]A cooperative body made up of rank and file workers from all the striking locals were formed during the strike, called the General Strike Committee. It acted as a "virtual counter-government for the city."[14] The committee organized to provide essential services for the people of Seattle during the work stoppage. For instance, garbage that would create a health hazard was collected, laundry workers continued to handle hospital laundry, and firemen remained on duty. Exemptions to the stoppage of labor had to be passed by the Strike Committee, and authorized vehicles bore signs to that effect.[12][14] In general, work was not halted if doing so would endanger lives.[14]
- In other cases, workers acted on their own initiative to create new institutions. Milk wagon drivers, after being denied the right by their employers to keep certain dairies open, established a distribution system of 35 neighborhood milk stations. A system of food distribution was also established, which throughout the strike committee distributed as many as 30,000 meals each day. Strikers paid twenty-five cents per meal, and the general public paid thirty-five cents. Beef stew, spaghetti, bread, and coffee were offered on an all-you-can-eat basis.[12] The systems developed during the strike resemble systems of organization already in use by the Japanese community of Seattle, a group which was largely left out of the strike leaders efforts.[citation needed ]
- Army veterans created an alternative to the police in order to maintain order. A group called the "Labor War Veteran's Guard" forbade the use of force and did not carry weapons, and used "persuasion only."[12] Peacekeeping proved unnecessary. The regular police forces made no arrests in actions related to the strike, and general arrests dropped to less than half their normal number. Major General John F. Morrison, stationed in Seattle, claimed that he had never seen "a city so quiet and orderly."[12] The methods of organization adopted by the striking workers bore resemblance to anarcho-syndicalism, perhaps reflecting the influence of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest,[citation needed ] though only a few striking locals were officially affiliated with the IWW.[12]
- Radical visions [ edit ] The pamphlet entitled "Russia Did It."
- Revolutionary pamphlets littered the streets of the city. One called "Russia Did It" proclaimed: "The Russians have shown you the way out. What are you going to do about it? You are doomed to wage slavery till you die unless you wake up, realize that you and the boss have nothing in common, that the employing class must be overthrown, and that you, the workers, must take over the control of your jobs, and through them, the control over your lives instead of offering yourself up to the masters as a sacrifice six days a week, so that they may coin profits out of your sweat and toil."[15]
- In an editorial in the Seattle Union Record, a union newspaper, activist Anna Louise Strong tried to describe the general strike's power and potential:[16]
- The closing down of Seattle's industries, as a MERE SHUTDOWN, will not affect these eastern gentlemen much. They could let the whole northwest go to pieces, as far as money alone is concerned.
- But, the closing down of the capitalistically controlled industries of Seattle, while the workers organize to feed the people, to care for the babies and the sick, to preserve order '' this will move them, for this looks too much like the taking over of power by the workers.
- Labor will not only Shut Down the industries, but Labor will reopen, under the management of the appropriate trades, such activities as are needed to preserve public health and public peace. If the strike continues, Labor may feel led to avoid public suffering by reopening more and more activities.
- UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT.
- And that is why we say that we are starting on a road that leads '' no one knows where!
- Newspaper across the country reprinted excerpts from Strong's editorial.[17]
- End of the general strike [ edit ] Police setting up a mounted machine gun during the strike.
- Three simultaneous movements brought the strike to an end: Mayor Ole Hanson increased the police and military forces available to enforce order, though there was no disorder, and possibly to take the place of striking workers. Union officials, especially those more senior and those at higher levels of the labor movement, feared that using the general strike as a tactic would fail and set back their organizing efforts. Union members, perhaps seeing the strength of the forces arrayed against them, perhaps mindful of their union leaders concerns began to go back to work.[citation needed ] The General Strike Committee attributed the end of the strike to pressure from international union officers and the difficulty of continuing to live in the shut-down city.[18]
- Mayor Hanson had federal troops available and stationed 950 sailors and marines across the city by February 7. He added 600 men to the police force and hired 2,400 special deputies, students from the University of Washington for the most part.[13]:'87' On February 7, Mayor Hanson threatened to use 1,500 police and 1,500 troops to replace striking workers the next day, but the strikers assumed this was an empty threat and were proved correct.[19] The Mayor continued his rhetorical attack on February 9, saying that the "sympathetic strike was called in the exact manner as was the revolution in Petrograd."[20] Mayor Hanson told reporters that "any man who attempts to take over the control of the municipal government functions will be shot."[21]
- The mayor's newly hired deputies receive their weapons.
- The international offices of some of the unions and the national leadership of the AFL began to exert pressure on the General Strike Committee and individual unions to end the strike.[22] Some locals gave in to this pressure and returned to work. The executive committee of the General Strike Committee, pressured by the AFL and international labor organizations, proposed ending the general strike at midnight on February 8, but their recommendation was voted down by the General Strike Committee.[22] On February 8, some streetcar operators returned to work and restored some critical city transportation services. Seattle's main department store reopened as well.[23] Then teamsters and newsboys returned to work.[24] On February 10, the General Strike Committee voted to end the general strike on February 11 and by noon on that day it was over.[25] It stated its reasons: "Pressure from international officers of unions, from executive committees of unions, from the 'leaders' in the labor movement, even from those very leaders who are still called 'Bolsheviki' by the undiscriminating press. And, added to all these, the pressure upon the workers themselves, not of the loss of their own jobs, but of living in a city so tightly closed."[26]:'35' [27]
- The city had been effectively paralyzed for five days, but the general strike collapsed as labor reconsidered its effectiveness under pressure from senior labor leaders and their own obvious failure to match the Mayor's propaganda in the war for public opinion.[citation needed ] The shipyard strike, in support of which the general strike had been called, persisted.[28]
- Aftermath [ edit ] Immediately following the general strike's end, thirty-nine IWW members were arrested as "ringleaders of anarchy"[29] despite their playing a marginal role in the development of events.
- Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson took credit for ending the strike and was hailed by some of the press. He resigned a few months later and toured the country giving lectures on the dangers of "domestic Bolshevism." He earned $38,000 in seven months, five times his annual salary as mayor.[30] He agreed that the general strike was a revolutionary event. In his view, the fact that it was peaceful proved its revolutionary nature and intent. He wrote:[15][29]
- The so-called sympathetic Seattle strike was an attempted revolution. That there was no violence does not alter the fact... The intent, openly and covertly announced, was for the overthrow of the industrial system; here first, then everywhere... True, there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings. Revolution, I repeat, doesn't need violence. The general strike, as practised in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet. To succeed, it must suspend everything; stop the entire life stream of a community... That is to say, it puts the government out of operation. And that is all there is to revolt''no matter how achieved.
- Between the strike's announcement and beginning, on February 4, the U.S. Senate voted to expand the work of its Overman Judiciary Subcommittee from investigating German spies to Bolshevik propaganda. The Committee launched a month of hearings on February 11, the day the strike collapsed. Its sensational report detailed Bolshevik atrocities and the threat of domestic agitators bent on revolution and the abolition of private property. The labor radicalism represented by the Seattle General Strike fit neatly into its conception of the threat American institutions faced.[31]
- See also [ edit ] Everett MassacreCleveland May Day riots of 1919Anna Louise StrongCapitol Hill Autonomous ZoneNotes [ edit ] ^ Murray, Robert K. (1955). Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919''1920. U of Minnesota Press. p. 58. ISBN 9780816658336. ^ History Committee of the General Strike Committee, accessed June 6, 2011 ^ Spence, Richard B. (2017-04-03). "The Voyage of the Shilka : The Bolshevik Revolution Comes To Seattle, 1917". American Communist History. 16 (1''2): 88''101. doi:10.1080/14743892.2017.1330106. ISSN 1474-3892. ^ "Charles Pierce Lewarne. Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885''1915. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1975. Pp. xiv, 325. $12.50". The American Historical Review. October 1976. doi:10.1086/ahr/81.4.985-a. ISSN 1937-5239. ^ Mason Daniel; Smith, Jessica, eds. (1970). Lenin's impact on the United States. N.W.R. Publications. OCLC 92937. ^ Magden, Ronald. ''The Radical Era.'' A History of Seattle Waterfront Workers, 1884-1934. 1st ed. Seattle, Wash.: International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union 19 of Seattle, the Washington Commission for the Humanities, 1991. ^ Cole, G. D. H. (October 1952). "The Bolshevik Revolution". Soviet Studies. 4 (2): 139''151. doi:10.1080/09668135208409848. ISSN 0038-5859. ^ a b Brecher, 120 ^ a b Foner, 65 ^ a b c d e f g Zinn, 368''369 ^ a b Hagedorn, Ann (2007). Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 . New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-4372-8. ^ a b c Brecher, 122 ^ a b Brecher, 126 ^ Brecher, 124''125 ^ Hagedorn, 87 ^ Zinn, 369''70 ^ Foner, 73-4 ^ Foner, 73 ^ Sobel, Robert. Coolidge: An American Enigma. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc. p. 124. ^ a b Foner, 75 ^ Foner, 74 ^ Foner, 76 ^ Foner, 75-6 ^ History Committee of the General Strike Committee (1919). The Seattle General Strike: An account of what happened in Seattle, and especially in the Seattle labor movement during the General Strike, February 6 to 11, 1919. Seattle: The Seattle Union Record, Publishing Co., Inc. hdl:2027/hvd.32044011842598. ^ Brecher, Jeremy (2014-04-01). Strike!. PM Press. p. 112. ISBN 9781604869071. ^ "Shipyard Strike May Be Long One" . Retrieved January 15, 2016 '' via University of Washington Seattle General Strike Project. ^ a b Zinn, 370''1 ^ Murray, 65''66; Hagedorn, 180 ^ Hagedorn 59, 147''148; Murray, 94''98 References [ edit ] Brecher, Jeremy. Strike! Revised edition. South End Press, 1997. ISBN 0-89608-569-4Foner, Philip S., History of the Labor Movement in the United States, v.8 Postwar Struggles, 1918''1920 (NY: International Publishers, 1988), ISBN 0-7178-0388-0Hagedorn, Ann, Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007), ISBN 0-7432-4372-2History Committee of the General Strike Committee. Seattle General Strike (Left Bank Books, 2012)Murray, Robert K., Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919''1920 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 1955)Zinn, Howard. "Self Help in Hard Times." A People's History of the United States. Rev. and updated ed. (NY: HarperCollins, 1995) ISBN 0-06-092643-0Frank, Dana., Race Relations and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1915-1919 The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 86, no.1 (1994)Further reading [ edit ] Robert L. Friedheim, The Seattle General Strike. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1964.Roger S. Powers; et al., eds. (1997). "Seattle General Strike, 1919". Protest, Power, and Change: An Encyclopedia of Nonviolent Action. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-76482-0. Cal Winslow, Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020.Archives [ edit ] The King County Labor Council of Washington (Seattle, Wash.) Records. 1889''2003. 38.26 cubic feet (1.083 m3) The Martin Luther King County Labor Council is the successor organization to the Seattle Central Labor Council. This collection contains records relating to the Seattle General Strike of 1919.Ottilie Markholt Records. 1891''2004. 54.24 cubic feet (including 1 folder, 53 boxes, and 2 tubes). This collections contains Markhot's published piece, "How Shall We Remember the Seattle General Strike?"Anna Louise Strong Papers. 1885''1970. 24.11 cubic feet (43 boxes, 3 packages, 3 folders). Contains material collected by Strong about the Seattle General Strike.Broussais C. Beck Papers. 1919''1961. 2.93 cubic feet including microfilm (5 boxes). Contains materials Beck collected when he was monitoring labor activity before, during, and after the Seattle General Strike.Ole Hanson Papers. 1976''1982. 4 items. Contains records from Hanson's service as mayor of Seattle during the Seattle General Strike.External links [ edit ] Seattle General Strike Project at the University of WashingtonSeattle Strikes Exhibit at the University of Washington Library"An Account of What Happened in Seattle and Especially in the Seattle Labor Movement, During the General Strike, February 6 To 11, 1919," by the History Committee of the General Strike Committee
- Prince Harry: get tested for HIV to protect others in same way as for Covid | Prince Harry | The Guardian
- The Duke of Sussex has urged people to ''know your status'' and get tested for HIV, saying he hopes to carry on his mother's work to help eradicate stigma and misunderstanding surrounding the virus.
- He told former Welsh rugby captain Gareth Thomas, who lives with HIV, that there had been a huge change with people openly talking about the condition in the 35 years after his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, opened the first Aids unit at Middlesex hospital in London. But more must be done to make progress towards the UK goal of ending new HIV cases by 2030, he added.
- In a video conversation released online to mark National HIV Testing Week, Harry said he had been influenced by the suffering caused by the virus during visits to Lesotho and Botswana. ''Add in the fact that my mum's work was unfinished, I feel obligated to try and continue that as much as possible. I can never fill her shoes, especially in this particular space, what she did, what she stood for and how vocal she was on this issue,'' he said.
- When Harry took an HIV test in 2016, the live broadcast contributed to a 500% increase in the number of people requesting a test on the Terrence Higgins Trust website.
- He said: ''Every single one of us has a duty, or at least an opportunity, to get tested ourselves to make it easier for everybody else to get tested.'' Noting there had been a drop in HIV testing during Covid, he added that with people regularly testing for coronavirus, it should be ''ingrained in us that that's what we need to do, to know our status in order to be able to keep other people safe''.
- Thomas, who disclosed his HIV status in 2019, has since launched Tackle HIV alongside ViiV Healthcare in 2020 to educate people about the virus. He said, though people may be daunted taking a test for fear of a positive result, ''it wouldn't be scary if you understood what living with HIV in 2022 is''.
- His own diagnosis had given him ''an appreciation of life''. ''I take a moment at 6am '... I take my HIV medication which is one tablet, and I feel that my day then begins. I'm very active, I go to the gym, I work as hard as I possibly can, and I think with that appreciation of life comes this sense of not being selfish,'' he said.
- A condition he ''thought would be a life ending condition, it's actually turned into being a life affirming condition'', he said.
- Free HIV test kits to do at home can be ordered from www.startswithme.org.uk
- Johnson & Johnson may have stopped production of its COVID vaccine - Deseret News
- Can you still get the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine?
- By Herb Scribner on February 10, 2022 5:00 am A member of the Philadelphia Fire Department prepares a dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site in Philadelphia on March 26, 2021. Johnson & Johnson has reportedly stopped the production of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine.
- Matt Rourke, Associated Press
- Johnson & Johnson has reportedly stopped the production of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, signaling that the company may cut back on its overall production of the vaccine.
- The news: The New York Times reports that Johnson & Johnson quietly shut down production at a plant in the Netherlands, which was the only location that was creating usable doses of the J&J COVID-19 vaccine.
- Yes, but: ''The facility, in the Dutch city of Leiden, has instead been making an experimental but potentially more profitable vaccine to protect against an unrelated virus,'' per The New York Times
- The halt in production will last temporarily, per The New York Times. It's unclear if the shutdown will impact overall J&J vaccine supplies because there are stockpiles of the vaccine available.The other side: J&J did not confirm the planet closure, but told CBS News that ''we currently have millions of doses of our COVID-19 vaccine in inventory'' and ''we continue to fulfill our contractual obligations ... (to) the African Union.''
- One thing to watch: In October 2021, Johnson & Johnson said it would commit about 50 million vaccines to COVAX, the global initiative to give vaccines throughout the world, according to The Hill.
- It's unclear if the production shutdown would impact the distribution of those vaccines.
- Whistleblower: Pentagon Holds Female Soldiers To Far Lower Standards
- According to an anonymous whistleblower letter posted by Air Force Times, Pentagon policy makers are promoting ''diversity and inclusion'' at the expense of high, uncompromised standards in an elite Special Operations Forces command. The letter focuses an unnamed female captain who began training with the Special Tactics Training Squadron (STTS) in 2018, hoping to become the first woman to join a combat controller team (CCT).
- The female captain dropped out of physically demanding combat controller course exercises several times, but unlike male trainees with similar difficulties, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) officials kept extending special concessions to keep her in the program.
- The detailed anonymous letter reported 11 examples of unusual concessions that AFSOC extended to retain the female captain, even though she had not met longstanding standards and repeatedly dropped out of essential training events, such as rigorous diving exercises and solo land navigation. Air Force Times, which confirmed details with a second source, obtained performance forms and score charts that appeared to support the whistleblower's letter, and submitted them for comment to AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Jim Slife.
- Slife did not refute specific allegations, citing privacy considerations, but he vehemently denied that AFSOC standards had changed: ''While the standards remain the same, the norms have not.'' This is an equivocation, based on a half-truth.
- ''Norms'' did change last year when U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Commander General Richard Clarke released his Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan. The Center for Military Readiness analyzed the SOCOM diversity mandate, noting that 12 times on 20 pages, the document asserted without evidence that ''Diversity and inclusion are operational imperatives.'' These vacuous, unsupported words have triggered turbulence in one of the nation's most elite fighting forces, and probably more we don't know about.
- Air Force Special Tactics (ST) combat controllers often deploy as ''one-man attachments to special forces teams,'' such as Navy SEALS, Army Delta Force, and Marine Raiders. They are FAA certified, trained in scuba, parachuting, and other special forces skills, and capable of establishing airfields in hostile areas, calling in air strikes, and evacuating fallen colleagues during perilous covert missions.
- The female captain deadlifted 250 pounds, an impressive feat, but Special Tactics Officers (STOs) must deadlift 300 pounds, a test tied to mission requirements. A man who can lift 400 pounds still may not be qualified if he doesn't show the mental toughness needed to stay in training without quitting.
- Nevertheless, when the female captain self-eliminated from strenuous diving and solo land navigation events, AFSOC commanders kept extending special career options to get her back in the ST squadron, where she will resume training soon. If true, responsibility for these extraordinary concessions belongs to SOCOM's ''first ever'' Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Richard Torres-Estrada, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and SOCOM Commander Gen. Clarke.
- In 2021 Torres-Estrada was removed as diversity czar but his reinstatement coincided with release of the SOCOM Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan. Insisting that ''Diversity & inclusion are operational imperatives,'' the document ordered ST commanders to ''ruthlessly reassess our cultural norms.''
- Pretentious words like that have consequences. Now we see ''evolving'' standards and norms that are not consistent with Special Operations Forces culture.
- According to Anna Simons, Ph.D., author of a book on the subject, trainees who voluntarily withdraw (VWs) are not demeaned, but they're not coddled either: ''No one tries to convince a VW that he might be making a mistake or that he should rethink his decision. Special Forces Assessment & Selection is all about elimination.''
- Dropping out of ST training is no disgrace; 70-80 percent of male aspirants do not make it through the three-year combat controller course. Slife nevertheless split hairs between ''standards'' and ''norms,'' raising questions about his decisions as AFSOC commander.
- Wrote Slife, ''How we bring trainees through the training pipeline today is different than the way we [did]15 years ago because our understanding of the best way to get trainees to meet standards and be ready to join the operational force has evolved.''
- Special operators whose necks and missions are on the line see through the semantics. Finishing each phase of training without quitting is an essential qualification that is critically important for unit cohesion, which means mutual trust for survival and mission accomplishment.
- A confidential Navy source explains the new norms: Because ''equity'' is more important than individual excellence, how a female trainee is deemed ''qualified,'' even after multiple failures, becomes irrelevant. It's like two people taking a written test in which one is required to provide answers from memory and the other is given a list of answers. Both score 100 percent on the test and are called ''equally qualified.''
- Special tactics operators, however, don't get multiple chances to carry a wounded colleague to safety; they only get one. Pass or fail; live or die.
- High-level policy makers see nothing wrong with this. In their minds, discriminatory practices that put everyone at greater risk are called ''additional opportunities to succeed.'' Promotable officers must meet diversity goals, so career self-interest increases pressure to make the new norm ''work.''
- Slife attacked the integrity of the unknown whistleblower, accusing him of ''singling out'' a fellow service member for ''public abuse, bullying and harassment.'' It is unfortunate that the unknown whistleblower felt compelled to post his letter, but the Defense Department does not provide options for calling out dangerous training practices.
- No one should blame the female captain for policies she did not make. In a written report, she did not mention any unprofessional behavior or pressure from instructors to ''self-eliminate,'' but she did recognize that changes in standards ''invalidated me with a majority of my team.''
- The situation is unfair and demoralizing for everyone concerned. AFSOC leaders have called for an investigation of how women are being treated, but they are not asking the right questions. The issue is not about women; it's about priorities.
- Instead of supporting the Pentagon's small army of diversity-crats and ''woke'' leaders like those running Special Operations Command, Congress should challenge all military and civilian officials who are turning sound priorities upside down.
- Elaine Donnelly is President of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization that reports on and analyzes military and social issues.
- Nebraska Joins Call For Convention Of States To Amend US Constitution | ZeroHedge
- Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
- Nebraska on Jan. 28 became the 17th state to push for a convention of states to make changes to the U.S. Constitution'--an unconventional process that's never been used before.
- Under Article V of the Constitution, calling a convention to amend the U.S. constitution would require approval from two-thirds of U.S. states, or 34 of 50 states. According to the National Constitution Center, the measure is used to bypass Congress, but has never been accomplished before.
- Constitutional amendments can also be made if two-thirds of both chambers of Congress agree on a proposal and it is ratified by three-fourths of states. Since the U.S. Constitution was adopted, 27 amendments have been made.
- The Nebraska Legislature in its resolution, similar to other states, put forward changes that will ''impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.''
- State lawmakers reached a compromise with an amendment that would let the call expire in February 2027.
- Nebraska state Sen. Steve Halloran, a Republican who sponsored the resolution, told Fox News that he believes an ''overreach on the part of the federal government'' is driving states to push for change.
- ''The Founding Fathers had anxiety that that might happen,'' Halloran said. ''I don't believe they imagined that it would get to this point.''
- Halloran decried the $30 trillion national debt as ''unsustainable.''
- ''It's become abundantly clear with the history of Congress that they have no sense of limiting their spending and the accrued debt that's happening upon our nation,'' Halloran said.
- ''We have effectively kicked that can down the road on repayment of any of that, but we cannot kick the can down the road every year,'' he added.
- The senator called on other states to join on calls to amend the U.S. Constitution.
- ''It's an exercise in what the Constitution is,'' he said. ''I think it would be a great civics lesson once it happens.''
- In a message aimed at state leaders, Halloran told Fox News he believes the nation can no longer be operated on ''fear, uncertainty, and doubt.''
- He separately told Newsweek that states need to move to exercise their constitutional authority by ''proposing amendments through an Article V Convention of States to restrain the federal government from driving our country into insolvency.''
- According to the Convention of States Action, so far Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Utah have approved a call for the convention, while 24 others are considering doing so.
- Official UK Government data suggests Fully Vaccinated Brits will develop Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome by the end of February 2022 '' The Expose
- The latest UK Health Security Agency Vaccine Surveillance Report figures show that boosters massively accelerate immune system degradation and that most triple/double vaccinated people in the United Kingdom may develop a new form of Covid-19 vaccine induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome by the end of February 2022.
- The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) publishes a weekly 'Vaccine Surveillance' report containing statistics on Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths by vaccination status across England over a period of four weeks.
- By comparing the previous two published reports we have been able to calculate the real-world effectiveness of the Covid-19 injections over a period of 6 weeks as well as the immune system boost or degradation among everyone over the age of 18 in England.
- The following shows the immune system boost/degradation in each age group between week 47 and 50 2021 according to the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report '' Week 51:
- Cases reported by specimen date between week 47 & 50 2021 '' https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043608/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_51.pdf
- The following shows the immune system boost/degradation in each age group between week 49 and 52 2021 according to the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report '' Week 1 '' 2022:
- Cases reported by specimen date between week 49 & 52 2021 '' https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1045329/Vaccine_surveillance_report_week_1_2022.pdf
- The following graph shows the concerning immune system degradation among all age groups between week 47 and week 52 of 2021 according to the data contained in the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance reports ''
- These figures show an absurdly alarming rate of immune system destruction. If we extrapolate forward assuming the same rate of immune degradation as we saw in the Christmas fortnight, then we get the following'...
- A vaccine efficacy of -100% means that the vaccines have totally destroyed your immune response to Covid-19. You are defenceless against it when compared to an unvaxxed person (i.e. someone who still has an immune system response). The vaccinated will be condemned to be indefinitely reinfected like triple vaccinated Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
- It is important to realise that this is NOT vaccines failing to work or waning in efficiency. That would just lead to a 0% vaccine efficacy. If the vaccines were merely failing to work, their efficacy would be approaching from above the efficacy of unvaxxed immune systems. But it is not doing that. Vaxxed cases are many times worse than the unvaxxed case numbers. Vaxxed efficacy is diving miles below unvaxxed efficacy. These figures are a catastrophe for the vaccinated.
- Vaccines are not waning and neither will they not wax in the future. Every cell that they infect starts to produce pathogenic spike proteins. Your immune system recognises this (even if you don't) and sends killer T cells to destroy those cells. Because unlike the present generation of politicians, pharmaceutical salesmen and NHS bureaucrats your immune system is desperately trying to keep you alive. The more boosters you take, the more spike proteins you make, the more cells you lose and the larger the fraction of your limited immune system response is directed into a self inflicted civil war against vaccinated cells.
- You may not recognise vaccines as alien, as dangerous and as lethal to your body, but your immune system would beg to differ. It is right now destroying absolutely every vaccinated cell in your body (if you are vaxxed).
- It is your immune system which is keeping you standing and keeping you breathing and stopping you keeling over from Myocarditis, not the vaccines. (Incidentally for all those who have fallen for the lie of mild Myocarditis, please read the final section of this article.)
- These latest UKHSA figures are a catalogue of progressive vaccine destruction of your immune system which we first identified and published in the Expose on October 10th 2021.These vaccines reprogram your immune system to fail and to therefore require more drugs from Pfizer and Moderna, just like an HIV AIDS patient. No true vaccine would ever have a negative efficacy. These vaccines are immune disruptors disguised and sold as immune boosters. They have no direct effectiveness against Omicron at all. So this variant exposes their true nature as immune system poisons. This may well be a criminal deception. Many who care have been trying to expose this for months. But now the UKHSA has done our job for us.
- These figures show that Pfizer and Moderna are in the business of manufacturing and selling immune disruptors as vaccines.
- The only question now remaining is how much of your immune system will have been 100% destroyed by the end of February? How much of the immune response to Covid-19 is needed to fight cancer, bacterial sepsis, fungal sepsis, other viruses, auto-immune diseases etc. etc.?
- If you stop poisoning your body it may recover. If you continue to poison it, it will not.
- All the red ink in the Vaccine Efficacy table above declares that Vaccine Passports are the precise opposite of what is required to fight this pandemic. It is the vaccinated who are spreading Omicron not the unvaccinated, and the more vaccine you have taken the faster your immune system is degrading.
- The Expose pointed out in October that boosters give you a short lived immune system stimulation that will soon be followed by an even faster rate of decline in immune response. My God was that an understatement '' A 70% immune system degradation in 2 weeks for 70-79 year olds?
- Here is what we published in October 30 '' https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/10/30/gov-reports-show-fully-vaccinated-and-children-developing-ade/
- ''At the other end of the age scale, the 80+ group saw a major improvement in Week42, due to the boosters which will buy them a couple of months of improved covid immunity which will hide the continuing gradual immune system degradation. These boosters are the same as the original vaccinations (because no other shot has yet been approved and because the drug companies have so far only been indemnified against the original vaccines). So the worry is that whilst, Covid-19 immunity may be improved for a couple of months, their general immunity is now degrading even faster than it would have done had the booster not been taken. We shall see if that turns out to be the case from future data.''
- Well, we now have the future data, and regrettably we can see that it was the case.
- Dr Steve James of King's College Hospital South LondonWe must quote Dr Steve James at King's College Hospital in South London here, responding to UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid and saying: ''So, I've had COVID at some point, I've got antibodies, and I've been working on COVID ICU since the beginning. I have not had a vaccination, I do not want to have a vaccination. The vaccines are reducing transmission only for about 8 weeks for Delta, with Omicron it's probably less. And for that, I would be dismissed if I don't have a vaccine? The science isn't strong enough,'' James said.
- The UKHSA figures confirm his representations. And we must give Sajid credit for asking the question which prompted the Doctor's response. Dr James continued:
- ''If you haven't had the vaccination, to not get it, because the protection I've got from transmission is equivalent to somebody who's vaccinated.''''Yes,'' the health secretary replied, adding, ''but at some point that will wane as well.''
- ''But if you want to provide protection with a booster, you'd have to inject everybody every month,'' James pointed out. ''If the protection's worn off from transmission after two months, then after a month you still have a bit of protection '' but if you want to maintain protection, you're going to need to boost all staff members every single month, which you're not going to do.''
- These last comments are the key and have not been widely reported. But this is a cardiac ICU Doctor at a major South London Hospital saying do not get vaccinated.
- Myocarditis has a 56% mortality rate within 4.3 years according to the American Heart AssociationDr. Anthony Hinton, a consultant surgeon with 30 years of experience working for the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), has warned that Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) ''vaccine''-related myocarditis has a 20 percent fatality rate in children after two years, and a 50 percent fatality rate in five years.In a tweet, Hinton explained that viral myocarditis is ''not mild,'' adding that ''[i]t's dead heart muscle.'' To even suggest that myocarditis is in any way mild is akin to saying that a person is ''a little bit pregnant,'' added Scottish television presenter and author Neil Oliver.
- The American Heart Association medical journal Circulation explains that myocarditis results in a 56% mortality rate in 4.3 years. Giant cell myocarditis had an 80% mortality rate in five years.
- The Myocarditis Treatment Trial reported mortality rates for biopsy-verified myocarditis of 20% and 56% at 1 year and 4.3 years, respectively. These outcomes are similar to the Mayo Clinic's observational data of 5-year survival rates that approximate 50%. Survival with giant cell myocarditis is substantially lower, with <20% of patients surviving 5 years '' https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.105.584532
- VAIDSBy the end of February every fully vaccinated person in the UK may have full blown vaccine mediated AIDS according to the UK Governments own data. However much of the immune system that is presently left with the ability fight Omicron will have gone.
- This will cause a massive burden on the NHS and massive pain, suffering and death, all of which has been inflicted upon us by a corrupted healthcare system. This must be the biggest own goal in medical history.
- Categories: Breaking News, Did You Know?, Latest News, The Expose Blog, World News
- EU banks get Russia warning '-- RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
- Moscow may sponsor hackers to target financial institutions, European Central Bank warns
- The European Central Bank (ECB), the EU body tasked with regulating the eurozone, has warned financial institutions that they may become targets of Russian-sponsored cyberattacks as tensions with Ukraine continue to mount.
- Speaking at a news conference to present its annual review, the chair of the ECB Supervisory Board, Andrea Enria, told banks to focus on beefing up their security.
- ''We are asking [banks] to strengthen their cyber regime measures and look at a potential increase in attacks and the danger of these attacks going forward,'' Enria said.
- The warning comes as Russia stands accused of placing more than 100,000 soldiers near its border with Ukraine, with some believing this is a sign of an impending military incursion.
- The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any plans to invade, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also played down the Russian threat. However, many in the EU and US believe war is around the corner.
- According to Reuters, fear of war has also led other regulators, including the New York Department of Financial Services, to warn of possible Russian-sponsored hacking.
- Earlier this year, a hack hit Ukrainian government websites in a move that was later blamed on Moscow. The attacks saw messages posted on the sites, with a warning to citizens that all their personal information had been made public. ''All the evidence points to the fact that Russia was behind the cyberattack,'' Ukraine's Digital Transformation Ministry said. ''Moscow continues to wage a hybrid war.''
- The Kremlin denied all knowledge of the attack.
- Apple changes employees' titles to 'associate' after they leave - The Washington Post
- Inside Apple, your job classification can mean a lot. The difference between a ''level 4'' engineer and a ''level 5,'' for instance, could mean a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation. And those titles help determine how much Apple employees can make when they leave the company for another job. But there's a hitch.
- In widely used databases that companies refer to for verification of job information, Apple changes the job title for every employee, whether they're a PhD in computer science or a product manager, to ''associate,'' the company confirms.
- Apple's approach is bizarre if not unique, experts in employment practices say, but until now has gone largely unnoticed by anybody but a handful of job applicants whose r(C)sum(C)s conflict with official databases maintained by job verification services run by companies such as Equifax and LexisNexis.
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- The title ''associate'' is generally used to connote more junior roles. Entry-level retail workers, for instance, are often called associates. Law firms refer to recent law school hires in the same way, and in universities, associate professors are ranked below those with the title ''professor.''
- She pulled herself from addiction by learning to code. Now she's leading a worker uprising at Apple
- The practice recently came to light when Cher Scarlett, a former Apple software engineer who raised concerns about alleged discrimination and misconduct at the company, filed a complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that when Apple changed her job title to ''associate,'' it delayed the hiring process at a prospective employer by nearly a week, during which time the company rescinded the offer. Scarlett said the job verification service hired to vet her r(C)sum(C) was unable to resolve the discrepancy with Apple.
- Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock confirmed that, for years, Apple has changed the job titles of its former employees to ''associate.'' Rosenstock declined to say why Apple does this or precisely when the practice began.
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- ''We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters,'' he said.
- Scarlett, a software engineer on Apple's security team, last year helped found the #AppleToo movement, which encourages employees at the company to speak out about workplace misconduct. In mostly anonymous testimonials, hundreds of employees have shared stories of what the group calls ''persistent patterns of racism, sexism, inequity, discrimination, intimidation, suppression, coercion, abuse, unfair punishment and unchecked privilege.'' She left the company last year after she said she was intimidated and retaliated against.
- On Sept. 1, Scarlett filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging Apple's practices violate federal labor law. The case is being investigated. In October, Scarlett filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC, accusing Apple of misleading investors when it issued a statement to shareholders asserting that it does not use concealment clauses in separation agreements or settlements with employees. Scarlett says Apple asked her to sign such a clause when she left the company.
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- Apple has declined to comment on her specific allegations or specific employee matters.
- Apple fires employee who raised workplace misconduct allegations at the company
- Some former employees, previously unaware of the title changes, criticized Apple for the practice. Janneke Parrish, another #AppleToo founder, who was fired by the company after criticizing it for alleged employment law violations, said that even if Apple changes the titles in the database for all its employees, it can have ''devastating consequences'' for some former employees where specific titles represent levels of technical expertise. (Parrish has filed an NLRB complaint against Apple; she said she was told she was fired for deleting apps and files from a company phone during a company investigation, but she thinks it's because of her activism.)
- ''Doing this severely limits the ability for ex-Apple employees to verify past employment, especially if they left on bad terms. It essentially forces us to stay in Apple's good graces for those references as verification,'' she said.
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- Apple offers a phone number employers can call to verify titles of former Apple employees. A voice recording on that line directs callers to the web site for InVerify, an employment verification service provider owned by credit agency Equifax. When The Washington Post called InVerify's customer support number, a customer service representative said Apple is the only company he knew of that changes job titles of employees when they leave. Apple also changes titles for employees who have taken a leave of absence, the person said.
- The representative said he gets a few calls a month from people trying to get the accurate job titles of former Apple employees. If the caller can provide the employee's full Social Security number, InVerify is able to look up the person's old payroll information and verify the job title that way.
- Equifax did not respond to a request for comment.
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- But even people who verify job titles for a living can be stumped by the byzantine system for verifying accurate job titles for former Apple employees. Emails between Scarlett and Sterling, an employment verification firm hired by her would-be employer, show that employees at Sterling were confused when her title came back as ''associate'' when they checked Equifax's database, called the Work Number, in late January.
- Unable to verify Scarlett's title, a recruiter from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, which had offered her a job, emailed her asking if she could provide any references at Apple who might be able to independently verify her title. ''I hope you are having a great day! Could you help me with the job title discrepancy with Apple?'' the recruiter wrote in a message reviewed by The Post. ''Could you provide me with a couple of references from Apple? I'll need to submit references from Apple confirming the job title.'' Scarlett provided the name of a human resources employee she had dealt with in the past.
- The education of Frances Haugen: How the whistleblower learned to use data as a weapon from years in tech
- ''Irrespective of the reasons why they are doing it, this is a very bad and possibly unlawful practice,'' said Laurie Burgess, an employment law attorney who represents Parrish in her labor board case against Apple. ''Seems to me that this action interferes with employees' reasonable future economic interests.''
- Cher Scarlett filed an NLRB charge against Apple on Sept. 1, not on Aug. 7. This article has been corrected.
- Joe Biden's Pick For Department Of Energy Is Drag Queen Into 'Pup Play' - Montana Daily Gazette
- (Conservative Brief) The clown car known as the administration of President Joe Biden has a new, high level, hire to the Department of Energy. Sam Brinton, a drag queen and proponent of a sexual activity known as ''pup play'' announced his hiring on his Linkedin page.
- His profile reads ''Solving the World's #NuclearWaste Challenges and Protecting LGBTQ Youth from #ConversionTherapy.''
- Brinton is also involved in ''puppy play,'' which apparently involves grown men putting on dog masks and behaving like animals for sexual kicks. In a 2016 article in Metro Weekly, a man named Sam, with no last name given is interviewed at length; an accompanying photo makes it clear that Sam is Sam Brinton. Brinton is identified in the article as a ''handler'' of the men pretending to be puppies, and explains: ''It's the concept of the teacher and nurturer'.... My job is to make sure that while he's in the headspace, I'm keeping him safe.'' He says of one of his companions in this bizarre role-playing: ''Pup and I have what I feel is one of the most ideally perfect connections between our personal and kink life. Both of us have other partners, so we come into this space, and then we come out of it, knowing the boundaries of where your kink and non-kink relationships begin and end.'' Yeah, good to know.
- ''I actually have trouble when we transition from pup play to having sex. Like, 'No, I can't have you whimper like that when we're having sex,' because I don't want to mix that world. It's interesting because he doesn't have to come out of pup mode to have me f**k him. I personally have to bring him out of pup perception for me. But then I'm still treating him as a submissive to me.''
- ''One of the hardest things about being a handler is that I've honestly had people ask, 'Wait, you have sex with animals?' They believe it's abusive, that it's taking advantage of someone who may not be acting up to a level of human responsibility '... The other misperception is that I have some really messed up the background, like, did I have some horrible childhood trauma that made me like to have sex with animals,''
- Sam's bio on his website reads:'....
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- Editor's Note. This article was written by Carmine Sabia and and published at the Conservative Brief
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- When the Trucker Convoy Came for Me - The Atlantic
- As a writer, I've explored political rage at a distance. The anti-vax trucker convoy brought it up close and personal.
- Chris Young / The Canadian Press / APFebruary 12, 2022, 6 AM ET About the author: Stephen Marche is the author of The Next Civil War.
- Recently I published a book of speculative nonfiction about the possibility of a civil war in the United States. In the opening chapter, I imagine a scenario in which a carnivalesque group of far-right activists takes over a bridge and refuses to leave, provoking a response from federal authorities. My fantasy became reality recently, except not in a rural American county, as I had envisioned it, but in Windsor, Ontario. For five years, I have been studying American political rage, its sources, its abyssal depths, its vertiginous fracturing power. I thought I was studying an external phenomenon at a distance, and I was. Now the rage has come for me. The anti-vax trucker convoy has made it up close and personal.
- Three weeks ago, truckers formed a convoy to protest the cross-border COVID-vaccine mandate. Last weekend, they rolled into my Toronto neighborhood, near Bloor Street and Avenue Road. I went down to bear witness to the spectacle. The scene was not surprising to me: The same sort of people I'd seen at Donald Trump rallies and prepper conventions were there, with their hollowed-out faces intimate with pain, and their perpetually misspelled signs, and their sense of belonging to a community of the excluded. I confess that they disgusted me. I found myself stopping several people on the street and telling them to go home, that they weren't wanted here.
- David Frum: Trucker blockades in Canada may just be the beginning
- The truckers want ''freedom'' from mandates and have called for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign. They won't achieve either of these goals, so what they're doing now amounts to disruption for disruption's sake. Trucks have been driving around the entrances to the Ottawa airport in a kind of slow-motion blockade. This is a deliberate tactic to force the federal government to take action. The protesters want confrontation with Trudeau, not Doug Ford, the Conservative premier of Ontario, because only such a confrontation could save their movement. Their forces are diminishing: About 1,000 people are left in the Ottawa convoy, although that number may rise over the weekend. Their main avenue of fundraising has been suspended; a week after GoFundMe stopped all trucker fundraising activities, the Conservative government of Ontario froze all GiveSendGo donations. The federal government has, so far, resisted the impulse to call in the military, and it is quite right to do so. Every day the truckers remain in Ottawa, they appall a larger and larger segment of the Canadian population. ''Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake,'' as Napoleon said. Time is firmly on the authorities' side, if not that of the people suffering in Ottawa.
- Ultimately, I know that this trucker convoy will come to nothing. Its power has been exaggerated by U.S. media, principally Fox News. Nearly 60 percent of Canadians find the protesters ''offensive and inappropriate.'' More to the point, 88 percent of people in Canada over the age of 4 have been vaccinated, including 85 percent of those in the trucking profession. The main trucking advocacy groups are on board with the vaccine mandate, as are the Teamsters. At their peak, the trucker protests had just 8,000 people. The Conservative Party of Canada has told the truckers to go home; they have virtually no mainstream political support, except from a few remote members of Parliament from Saskatchewan. Nobody sensible can feel threatened by anything that comes out of Saskatchewan.
- Direct military confrontation with the convoy would be the worst strategy; after all, nearly a quarter of the protesters have their kids with them. Most likely the government will resolve to prosecute everyone involved in planning the convoy and investigate all foreign sources of support. The truckers have made life hell for their fellow citizens and threatened the democratic process, impotently but intentionally. Custodial sentences, massive fines, and class-action lawsuits are all coming. These situations never end well for the hostage-takers.
- On some level, though, even that kind of reaction seems over-the-top to me. These protests have been peaceful. I think that if you want to see accelerationist or insurgent tendencies, you have to squint. Everyone I have spoken with who has actually been to these rallies has described them to me as a tailgate. Several sources reported Nazi-flag sightings, but the Nazi flags in question were accusing Trudeau of being a Nazi. I guess it's a small comfort that, for the trucker convoy in Ottawa, the Nazis are still the bad guys, unlike for, say, the ''Jews will not replace us'' crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally in my neighborhood took place at the corner where the Royal Ontario Museum happens to be. During the rally, the museum didn't even close. I'm sure the trucks looked impressive on Twitter, if you angled the phone just right to make them look dangerous, but there, in person, kids were strolling by on their way to look at dinosaurs. January 6, it wasn't.
- Read: Trump's next coup has already begun
- The truckers matter principally as an example of an American political proxy conflict spilling over our border, and as a harbinger of more such conflicts. Peter Sloly, the Ottawa police chief, has declared that a ''sizable element'' from the U.S. has been involved in fundraising and organizing. The Ottawa police have been overwhelmed by 911 calls intended to disrupt operations, and ''they were coming in from the United States,'' according to Sloly. By far, the largest supporters of the trucker convoy on social media are Americans, namely Donald Trump and Elon Musk. (One of Trump's former ''science advisers'' has attended rallies.) Republican Senator Ted Cruz is way, way more into the trucker convoy than any Canadian Conservative is. This episode is no doubt just the beginning of the nightmare of living next to the United States in its time of breakdown. As American politics enters a state of complete toxicity, veering into insurgency, its violence and misinformation networks will inevitably spread across the border.
- So why was I, at the trucker convoy in Toronto, gripped by a deep physical loathing, true abjection? The truckers are operating on the level of narrative and symbolism. Their internal documents, leaked to The Guardian, reveal the usual conspiratorial thinking underlying their movement: that world leaders planned the pandemic and the rest of the ''great reset'' garbage. The truckers disgust me because they believe lies and want to force their lies on the rest of the country. They disgust me because they are not playing by the rules and represent a threat to decent, orderly citizens. If I'm being honest, in some part of my Canadian soul they disgust me because they're making a scene. Ultimately, they disgust me because they are so disgusted, and their anger and loathing have now provoked a mirroring anger and loathing in myself.
- For the first time, I felt political rage: a sharp rise in testosterone, blinding and stupefying and violent. I am ashamed to have felt it. Clearly men should not be in power. Our hormones make us too unreliable. Testosterone is a hell of a drug. On my way home, I saw stragglers from the convoy lining up outside the Japanese-cheesecake bakery and the pot shops that have come to dominate Toronto's urban landscape. I wanted them gone. This was not a healthy desire. The desire to punish, which is the dominant motive of both the left and the right in the United States, is fundamentally stupid. I hoped we could avoid it in Canada.
- I now have the anger I've been studying. I now know what it tastes like. And telling myself that the truckers don't matter, that the convoy will have exactly zero effect on public-health policy in Canada, doesn't make the anger go away. While I was writing The Next Civil War, I worked hard at suspending judgment, at concentrating on hearing people and trying to understand their motivations, even if they were Nazis or violent criminals. I worked so hard to resist the loathing and the rage. Now they are with me, at my doorstep and in my heart. I want nothing to do with either. Unfortunately, I know more is coming. When you live next to a junkie, you can expect something flaming to land in your backyard eventually. America is a political-anger junkie; the trucker convoy is something flaming that has landed in our backyard. How do we keep ourselves from burning?
- ''When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
- Podcasts Are No Longer Private Conversations - The Atlantic
- Keeping track of all the garbage aired in audio can be a full-time job, and the stakes are getting higher.
- Getty; The AtlanticFebruary 11, 2022, 7 AM ETTo take issue with a podcast, you have to do a lot of work. Or you have to hope that somebody else will.
- Many of the most popular and longest-running shows are chatty and relaxed, or made to feel that way, and they go on and on. Joe Rogan, a comedian and former Fear Factor host, has recorded more than 1,700 episodes of his freewheeling and intellectually dispiriting chat show, The Joe Rogan Experience. A single episode is often more than three hours long. Lately Rogan has been called upon to film a couple of (extremely close-cropped) apologies for using racial slurs in old episodes of his show and spewing nonsense about COVID-19 vaccines in more recent ones. But to identify and fully catalog every one of the offensive things he's said, you would have to listen to at least 4,000 hours of tape'--about six months of nonstop Rogan. That would be a full-time job.
- And it's actually a full-time job. Media Matters for America, a left-leaning nonprofit and watchdog group, employs the researcher Alex Paterson to listen to The Joe Rogan Experience as one of his core responsibilities. At the end of 2021, Paterson filed a report on more than 350 hours of tape'--less than 10 percent of Rogan's mammoth oeuvre. He made bulleted lists of suspect statements about COVID-19 and anti-trans rhetoric, and put other comments in a catchall category of ''right-wing misinformation and bigotry.'' (When Paterson's report was released, my co-workers and I discussed the 350 hours with shock and distress: Get this guy some hazard pay.)
- Even modest excavation efforts merit some congratulation. Wired's Steven Levy listened to Rogan for three hours; the Atlantic contributor Vinay Prasad did six-plus in January; Slate's in-house Rogan expert, Justin Peters, went in for eight last weekend. But going big and searching manually through the archives of any podcaster with a substantial back catalog requires not just time but motivation'--an axe to grind, or at least an angle. ''It was not a terribly glamorous reporting process,'' The Ringer's Claire McNear told The New York Times after she'd listened to all 41 episodes of a podcast hosted by the former Jeopardy producer Mike Richards, following a (correct) hunch that they would contain egregiously sexist comments. ''It was not like what they show in the movies.'' It was just sitting around listening to some guy talk.
- Read: Spotify isn't really about the music anymore
- Things might be different if one could find searchable transcripts of every podcast's every episode. An episode's contents could be scanned in minutes, or seconds if you knew what keywords you were looking for. But for now, transcripts are not widely available. Some podcasters make the effort to provide them, along with links in the show's notes. Other podcasters are popular enough that fan sites create and maintain transcript archives on their behalf. (That's been the case for Rogan, though transcripts became harder to find after he sold exclusive distribution rights to Spotify for a reported $100 million. Since then, Spotify has offered new ones to only some listeners, in a limited beta test.)
- But the outrage over Rogan's COVID takes, as well as his repeated use of the N-word, highlights an important moment for podcasts'--a medium that has until now offered something more intimate than other forms of mass-distributed content, and much less amenable to scrutiny. In the beginning, podcast money was exchanging hands person-to-person, through monthly fees from listeners via platforms like Patreon; the big-money ''podcast wars'' are just a few years old, and truly enormous exclusive deals like Rogan's with Spotify are still in a trial phase. But as the business grows up, and as more reporters or agitators invest the time in poring over all this content, the days of podcasting without consequences will be numbered.
- Alex Paterson decided to start monitoring Joe Rogan's podcast in July 2020, after a guest on the show, the writer Abigail Shrier, compared trans identity to ''demonic possession.''
- ''He is the most popular podcast host in the world,'' Paterson told me. Yet few not in Rogan's intended audience ever hear most of the things he says. Paterson gave the examples of Rogan's claims that mRNA vaccines are ''gene therapy'' and that Democratic politicians will ''kill people on purpose that are causing problems.'' If Paterson hadn't been dutifully listening in'--at 2x speed, all day long, nearly every day'--these comments would have gone unnoticed.
- Rogan's wild comments about the COVID-19 vaccine, and his claim to have treated his own coronavirus illness with ivermectin, have attracted the most negative attention from those outside his fanbase, including Anthony Fauci and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Also, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Paterson's report included these comments and a wide range of other quotations'--some of which could reasonably be called misinformation, some of which almost anybody would call offensive, and others of which were primarily very annoying. (In a May episode, for instance, Rogan predicted a future in which ''straight white men are not allowed to talk.'') Paterson says he is still listening to the show. ''Rogan usually publishes three to four podcasts a week that generally range between three to four hours long, and I try to listen to all of them within that week.'' He does not discuss it with his family or friends!
- Meanwhile, on Reddit, Rogan's fans have expressed outrage about his treatment by the media, but were'--unsurprisingly'--not shocked by any of the comments he'd made on his show. They had already heard them. One fan even posted about warning Rogan last January that he should bleep out racial slurs from past episodes, to protect himself. (''Cancel culture is awful and I never wanna see you go down!'') Others have been sharing words of encouragement from internet personalities who have taken Rogan's side in the whole debacle, including Donald Trump and another podcast host, Sam Harris, who recently said on his own show, ''Anyone who has spent dozens of hours listening to Joe's podcast knows to a moral certainty that Joe is not racist.'' The top comment in response: ''I just realized I've listened to this podcast for THOUSANDS of hours.'' (Fans have also been sharing conspiracy theories about who might be out to get Rogan. Google, for confusing reasons, is one suspect.)
- Read: Why is Joe Rogan so popular?
- Like all fandom, podcast fandom can be intense. The audience for the ''dirtbag left'' podcast Chapo Trap House is so volatile that it was banned from Reddit, so unified that it has built a new online community from scratch, and so invested that it pays the show's hosts more than $164,000 a month via Patreon. Podcast fans can also lack perspective. Commenters in the Reddit forum dedicated to the Red Scare podcast have gotten a little paranoid in the past few weeks, worrying that the controversy over Joe Rogan will cause Patreon to take down controversial podcasts, and that the forum's moderators may be restricting talk of the Rogan-Spotify issue because the Red Scare hosts are secretly working out their own huge deal with Spotify. (This would seem unlikely considering their fondness for the word retarded and their new friendship with the deplatformed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, but who knows?)
- Big media companies and platforms like Spotify became interested in podcasts precisely on account of this fan involvement. They wanted in because of the incredibly close relationship between podcast talent and their audiences, and the uncommon flow of devotion and money. ''The worth of a podcast is no longer just its content, but rather the sum of the relations it produces,'' Jamie Lauren Keiles wrote in a 2019 feature for The New York Times Magazine. Keiles interviewed the producer Gina Delvac, known for her work on the super-popular chat show Call Your Girlfriend, who characterized these relationships by saying, ''You have to remember that there's no fourth wall. When you're talking to someone, you're whispering in their ear. You're in the shower with them. You're on their commute to work.''
- This is not to say that podcast fans are incapable of criticizing the voices they spend so much time with'--only that they're also prone to forgiveness. A Joe Rogan fan may hear Joe Rogan say something false or bigoted and dislike it, but quickly excuse him by reasoning that this one statement doesn't define who Joe Rogan is, in the same way that a friend's or family member's weirdest or most thoughtless comments don't necessarily change our sense of who they are. Spotify may not have to worry, then, about a dramatic decline in listenership for Rogan's show. Nor does Rogan's talking shit about vaccines amount to a content-moderation problem for the company. Rather, it's an editorial and branding problem: Spotify gave this guy a lot of money to be, essentially, the face of its podcasting empire.
- This puts Spotify between a rock and a hard place'--between a reactionary fandom that makes a filter-free loudmouth a great investment and a cultural context that makes him a terrible one. This is a familiar problem for media companies. Disney faced the same issue when it tried to partner with the YouTuber PewDiePie'--who subsequently shared pro-Nazi content with his 100 million subscribers. (The company decided to cut ties.) Netflix recently dealt with an employee walkout over a Dave Chappelle special that contained anti-trans rhetoric; an unhappy employee also leaked the information that Chappelle had been paid $24.1 million for it. (Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos eventually apologized for his handling of the incident, but Chappelle is still set to perform at the company's comedy festival in the spring.)
- As podcasting becomes further entrenched as a mass-media format and hosts' platforms grow in size, these pressures will only increase. Work like Paterson's may be getting easier as well. The past two years have brought lawsuits against major podcast companies like SiriusXM and Spotify's Gimlet Media for their lack of podcast accessibility features, including transcriptions. (As a sometimes-listener of the chat show How Long Gone'--they get good guests and they're always laughing together!'--I have imagined what it would look like to CTRL+F the entire catalog for all of the hosts' weird comments about fat people.)
- If the dustup over Rogan hasn't resulted in the severing of his contract or his removal from Spotify's platform, it has still produced plenty of consequences. The Verge's Ashley Carman published the company's sparse COVID-19 content policy last month; Spotify then made the rest of its platform rules public for the first time. Later, after Rogan's racist comments came to light, Spotify removed dozens of old episodes of his show and its CEO, Daniel Ek, committed to invest $100 million in content made by members of historically marginalized groups. All to say, after thousands of hours, whatever Rogan'--or, maybe soon, any other podcaster'--is going on about is no longer just between him and his fans.
- ALL VIDEOS
- VIDEO - (23) Jonathan Goldsbie on Twitter: "It's so rare that the entire narrative of a press conference is demolished with two questions: https://t.co/7dnixNzchF" / Twitter
- Jonathan Goldsbie : It's so rare that the entire narrative of a press conference is demolished with two questions: https://t.co/7dnixNzchF
- Fri Feb 11 16:27:29 +0000 2022
- Cheri Patrick-Wilsonð'ð¨ : @goldsbie He admitted early on that the horns were keeping his family from sleeping so they went to the cottage. Gu'... https://t.co/pubfRbKRGw
- Sun Feb 13 03:10:05 +0000 2022
- Janice : @goldsbie Poor baby you are just as bad. Time for all this to end. You too are responsible for the economy too.
- Sat Feb 12 19:54:18 +0000 2022
- Catherine Gutsche : @goldsbie @22mosaics Ottawa residents would have loved to head to cottage country for a snow mobile ride but they w'... https://t.co/i9pyidyGbU
- Sat Feb 12 19:50:48 +0000 2022
- Florida freedom fighter : @goldsbie DROP THE MANDATES
- Sat Feb 12 19:17:18 +0000 2022
- Justme Anybody : @goldsbie @andy_eddy https://t.co/dRQ4kNPSxk
- Sat Feb 12 18:53:36 +0000 2022
- Grady : @goldsbie Coll look in for the W
- Sat Feb 12 17:13:16 +0000 2022
- Mike Cousineau : @goldsbie It's more like one question asked twice.I think it's the first time a reporter held him to account for d'... https://t.co/atwowJDQu8
- Sat Feb 12 16:51:25 +0000 2022
- Matthew ð¨ð...ð§ : @goldsbie now do @JustinTrudeau
- Sat Feb 12 16:49:53 +0000 2022
- kush75$ : @goldsbie Thia all was by design. They let this fester and fester on purpose so they could use the RCMP and police.'... https://t.co/3kBrBenira
- Sat Feb 12 16:15:44 +0000 2022
- Sharon Siba : @goldsbie So what if Ford took a few minutes break and went snowmobiling to relax and clear his head. People, do w'... https://t.co/kgs1TPiK0z
- Sat Feb 12 15:47:25 +0000 2022
- Dante Scholar : @goldsbie Can't believe I'm about to take his side but so what? You're mad at him for taking a little bit of free t'... https://t.co/mWeFDGNWGT
- Sat Feb 12 15:44:54 +0000 2022
- VIDEO - Austin sees 11 motorcycle crashes in 72 hours
- AUSTIN (KXAN) '-- At least 11 motorcycle crashes have occurred in Austin within the last three days. Almost all of these resulted in serious injuries and at least four were fatal, said Austin-Travis County EMS.
- On average, one motorcyclist dies in a Texas crash every day, the Texas Department of Transportation reported on its website.
- This means the Austin rate of motorcyclist deaths in the last 72 hours is at least 1.3 times the normal rate of all of Texas.
- Hunter Coleman, a shop manager at Austin City Powersports, said one of the reasons Austin is such a hard environment for motorcyclists to navigate is the amount of traffic in the city.
- ''People are always cutting each other off in traffic and, you know, in a car you might be able to slow down and stuff like that, but if you're on a bike, and you slow down, and someone rear-ends you, it's a lot more serious.'' He said. ''You don't have a cage to protect you.''
- Hunter said motorcycle sales have been strong the last six months at Austin City Powersports, and the newer generation is expressing more interest in motorcycles than it has before.
- ''I don't see [the rise of motorcycles in Austin] slowing down anytime soon, but then again, Austin's not slowing down anytime soon,'' he said. ''More cars are going to be out there, more motorcycles are going to be out there. The road network's just going to get crazier and crazier.''
- VIDEO - Austin Water director resigns, 3 employees placed on leave following days-long boil water notice | kvue.com
- Greg Meszaros led Austin Water for 15 years.
- AUSTIN, Texas '-- The director of Austin Water is resigning.
- On Friday, City Manager Spencer Cronk sent a memo to the Austin City Council stating that Greg Meszaros will be resigning from his position as the head of Austin's water utility.
- Austin Water has also placed three employees on administrative leave pending an investigation into how the incident happened. Administrative leave does not change the employee's employment status but removes the employee from the workplace while the investigation is underway. The employees will not return until the investigation has been completed.
- Cronk said that Meszaros has spent nearly 40 years in the profession, and he led Austin Water for 15 of those years.
- "Director Meszaros has been a consummate professional and a tireless advocate for his employees and the Utility. Throughout his tenure, Director Meszaros has consistently demonstrated a deep awareness of the significance of the services delivered by Austin Water and the importance of maintaining the public's trust," Cronk wrote in the memo.
- UPDATE: This is Meszaros' full resignation letter: ð https://t.co/XwMrPJAkUS pic.twitter.com/NKo0Diy09z
- '-- Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) February 11, 2022Meszaros's resignation comes after a days-long citywide boil water notice earlier this week. The notice was announced in the evening on Saturday, Feb. 5, and was lifted Tuesday, Feb. 8. Austin Water reportedly learned of the issue affecting the city's water supply 12 hours before it alerted customers.
- On Tuesday, Feb. 15, the Austin City Council is scheduled to hold a special meeting to discuss the citywide notice, which was Austin's third in five years.
- "I share everyone's frustration and am deeply disappointed that this event occurred. Knowing how it has affected this community and our organization weighs heavily on me," Meszaros said in a memo sent to the city council on Friday.
- Cronk said that in the days ahead, he and Meszaros will work through the coordination of this transition and the next steps for Austin Water. This will include appointing an interim director and a primary point of contact as the City works through the after-action review of the boil water notice.
- Cronk also said he will be identifying an independent third party to facilitate the review and identify recommendations and areas of improvement.
- KVUE on social media: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
- Tony Plohetski on social media: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
- Britny Eubank on social media: Twitter
- VIDEO - Dr. Emily Landon Discusses Illinois' Plan to Lift Mask Mandate - YouTube
- VIDEO - (28) Lincoln Jay on Twitter: ".@thevivafrei I think you might be right my friend. #TruckersForFreedom2022 https://t.co/8hpC710hZK https://t.co/1cyEjqJGdP" / Twitter
- Lincoln Jay : .@thevivafrei I think you might be right my friend. #TruckersForFreedom2022 https://t.co/8hpC710hZK https://t.co/1cyEjqJGdP
- Fri Feb 11 12:09:58 +0000 2022
- VIDEO - Doctor says a new COVID-19 variant could be coming in the next few months
- One doctor says it is not yet time to let your guard down when it comes to COVID-19. While cases appear to be slowing down again, they say we could be looking at another dominant variant soon, and another surge.
- Based on the history of the virus, Doctor James Taylor said that, unfortunately, we could expect another variant in three to four months.
- There is a plus to this though. While the omicron variant was more contagious, Taylor said it caused less lung damage and wasn't as deadly.
- He thinks the virus will continue to fade over the next few years until it is similar to something like the seasonal flu.
- The omicron variant has become the dominant strain in America, but there are many variants worldwide. Doctor Taylor said most variants die off before spreading throughout the population.
- ''I'm an optimist. I think things are going to continue to get better. I think our immune system as a society is going to get stronger and stronger, and this virus is going to get weaker and weaker. And as we see new variants form, they will get shorter in duration and shorter and intensity,'' said Taylor.
- You can take preventive measures to protect yourself from getting COVID-19 other than masking up and getting vaccinated.
- Doctor Taylor said if you have been eating vegetables, fruits, and healthy meats, you are already doing it. Eating healthy can protect you from the virus.
- Other important preventative measures include keeping your stress levels low and having your doctor check your Vitamin D levels.
- Doctor Taylor said people with low Vitamin D were reported to have increased hospitalization and deaths from COVID-19.
- While the virus spreads through the nose and mouth, it is important to focus on your nasal and oral hygiene.
- Doctor Taylor said that using nasal spray and mouth wash can make you less susceptible.
- ''I like to use a nasal spray that may have what's called carageenan, or xylitol in it, these are molecules that actually bind virus and when they bind virus, they don't bind to your mucous membranes. So using a nasal spray that has one of those two ingredients may protect you and your mucosal membranes from getting COVID in the first place. So psychologically, before I go to church, I take a little nasal spray, and after church, I do the same thing.''
- These are good preventatives to keep in mind if you plan to travel.
- Copyright 2022 Fort Myers Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without prior written consent.
- VIDEO - Consumer debt hits $15.6 trillion in 2021, a record-breaking increase
- Consumers ended 2021 with record levels of debt, leading into a year in which interest rates are expected to rise substantially.
- Total U.S. consumer debt at the end of the year came to $15.6 trillion, a year-over-year jump of $333 billion during the fourth quarter and just over $1 trillion for the full year, according to data released Tuesday from the Federal Reserve's New York district.
- The quarterly rise was the biggest since 2007, and the annual gain was the largest ever in records going back to 2003.
- The news comes ahead of a period in which the Fed is expected to start jacking up interest rates as it looks to tamp down inflation, which is running at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years. Markets expect the central bank to start increasing rates in March, the first of at least five bump-ups this year, totaling 1.25 percentage points.
- Fed interest moves are directly tied to the prime rate that consumers pay for many forms of debt, including credit cards and adjustable-rate mortgages.
- A large chunk of the debt-load increase came from mortgages, which saw balances rise by $890 billion for the year and $258 billion in the fourth quarter, to nearly $11 trillion. Mortgage originations for the year totaled more than $4.5 trillion, a new record.
- Credit card balances increased by $52 billion in the final three months of the year, a new quarterly record that brought total debt in that category to $860 billion.
- Owing to the rapid gain in prices, auto-loan balances rose by $90 billion, or 6.6%, to $1.46 trillion. New auto prices rose 11.8% for the year while prices for used vehicles soared by 37.3%, according to Labor Department data.
- One area that saw little increase was student loans, which edged higher by just $20 billion for the year and actually declined marginally in the fourth quarter. Forbearance programs, though mostly expired, are still keeping balances and delinquencies in check.
- New York Fed researchers said the rising-rate environment could affect household cash flows as borrowers adjust. Those who locked in at low mortgage rates, for instance, are likely to be reluctant to go out and buy new homes with rates moving higher, while those who ran up credit card balances could be constrained as financing costs increase.
Last Modified 02/13/2022 21:00:44 by Freedom Controller
